 
A TALE THAT IS TOLD:

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OPAL EARP POUNDS

by Opal Earp Pounds

Edited by

Geraldine Pounds Robideaux and Wayne Pounds

Published by

Wayne Pounds at Smashwords

Copyright 2017 Geraldine Robideaux

Table of Contents

Editorial Note

Ch. 1: A Tale That Is Told

Ch. 2: The Gusher: A Short Story

Ch. 3: Family History Notes

Coda by the Editors

Web Site

Editorial Note

Opal left behind three manuscript documents about her life. "A Tale That is Told" is the longest and most complete, but two other excursions exist. The earliest is a short piece she called "Down Memory Lane," which has been collated with "A Tale That Is Told" and does not appear here as a separate text. The third takes the form of a short story that she hoped to publish. It has no title, so we have called it "The Gusher" and placed it at the end. It sometimes repeats information in the first part of "A Tale That Is Told," but many of the details are new.

The Home Place about 1910 (above).
Chapter 1: A Tale That is Told

As I begin this little composition I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist David. "We spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are three score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away" (Ps. 90:9-10). David's years were filled with many conflicts, defeats and victories and in them all, his praises to God never ceased. Like David I longed after a relationship with God in my youth but never really found that fount of blessing until I was a young mother thirty-three years old, but I'm getting ahead of my story.

I was born to Hugh Ernest Earp and Arlie Avenell Flatt Earp in Stigler, (Haskell Co.) Oklahoma on June 5, 1920, the second of four children she was to bear to him. A brother, Ernest Faye Earp, was three years old at the time. We also had a half-brother, Kenneth Hugh Earp, who was a few years older than us.

My first memories are of the home northwest of Stroud, which was the first home of all the Earps in Oklahoma Territory, called now the "Home Place." I understand that my Grandfather didn't win it in the great land run of 1891 but purchased it soon afterwards from a man who had staked a claim on it. The farm is located three miles north of Stroud and about two and a half miles west and then north again for half a mile.

I remember a cement porch on the east and a screened in porch on the west. Just outside on the west was a dirt covered cellar. I remember a little stream that ran along the east over rocks where my older brother Ernie and I played and waded in the cool clear water. Also a red barn with a loft full of sweet smelling hay where we romped. Many times I fell out of the loft and thought I was going to die because I couldn't get my breath. Why didn't I learn there was a hole there by the ladder where Daddy threw down hay for the horses?

Then there was the day that Ernie and I killed a big black snake. We left it by the side of the barn but when we came back a few hours later to exult over our kill, the snake had disappeared. We puzzled about that for days. But in later years we realized we must have only stunned the snake.

It was here on the old home place that my sister Vera Dene and my brother Wendel were born. My Daddy had sent us three older ones upstairs out of the way, but like curious kids we sat on the stairs listening and wondering why we were banished from the downstairs. Soon we heard the cries of a new baby brother. Wendel came to live among us that day.

I remember visiting Grandmother and Grandfather Earp and our half-brother Kenneth when they lived on the "Old Trail." Grandmother's old Rhode Island rooster chased us and Dena was especially afraid of it. We were also apprehensive around Kenneth's big brindle-and-white bull dog until someone poisoned him. I'll never forget how he suffered, slobbering, foaming at the mouth. What a terrible way for an animal to die.

Kenneth was born to Hugh and his first wife Lenna Wilburn Earp on Nov. 30, 1914 at Stroud, Oklahoma. Lenna died when Kenneth was 7 days old from blood poisoning. I was told by Mother that the doctor who delivered Lenna had come from helping to deliver a cow and his hands were not clean. In those days they didn't understand too much about germs. Lenna is buried in the Black Cemetery north of Stroud, presumably on the Black farm. When I was a child we used to go there yearly so that Daddy could help care for the cemetery and the grave.

As a result of Lenna's death Grandmother Earp took Kenneth and nursed him back to health as he too was very ill as a result of his mother's blood poisoning. The grandparents became so attached to him that at the time of my parents' marriage, when Kenneth was two years old, it was breaking their hearts to part with him. So my Dad quit taking him to his new home and told his Mother that since she had cared for Kenneth when he could not, so she could keep him. In my opinion that was the greatest mistake Dad ever made, for Kenneth grew up without the family circle. Grandmother loved him too much and spoiled him. She was left a widow when Kenneth was ten and she was sixty-four. How does an old lady cope with a teenaged boy?

I remember going to Grandmother's and finding her in distress many times in those years because she didn't know where Kenneth was. Daddy would go up town and find him, bring him home, and give him a strapping. I've always felt that Kenneth should have been in our home when we came along. I wonder did he ever feel abandoned and unwanted by his only parent? We never really knew him like a brother until he married Laura. But that is another story, and I must return to the present one.

One Saturday evening, I may have been three or four years old, I remember going home with my grandparents the Flatts, mother's parents. We rode home from Stroud in a wagon. Grandpa had bought me a sack of candy. He was my favorite Grandpa. He was always holding me on his lap and kissing me while his coffee stained mustache tickled my face. He was a loving person. I don't remember how old I was when I got too big to sit on his lap but I never got too big to kiss. Anyway, I was so happy and felt so important to be going home with them all by myself. But the next morning I was homesick and cried so, I had to be taken home.

It was on the old home place that I started to school at a little one-room school called Buttermilk. My cousin Ruby McDaniels [born 1906, daughter of Ocie Ann Flatt and Homer McDaniel] was the teacher that year. We had to walk one and a half miles to school and because of leg-ache pains I didn't go too often.

Opal, 1929 (above)

I remember coming home from school one afternoon and the water bucket was empty, so I proceeded to the well for a drink. It so happened that the well handle was held on by a bolt and not knowing it was about ready to fall out, I proceeded to pump. The bolt came out and the iron pump handle hit me on the forehead and split my head open. I began to scream and my screams awakened a driller who was rooming with us. He slept in the day and worked nights on the oil derrick which was drilling on the home farm at that time. He put me in his car and we started for town, but my folks came home about then and they took me into Stroud to the doctor, who fixed me up with some stitches. I still wear the scar today from that mishap.

I remember catching the excitement of the first oil well drilled on the Home Place where we were living. What a great day it was for everyone when it blew in a gusher. Black oil was sprayed all around. My dad had been working with his team and a slip helping to build that pond that always afterward was to be known as the Carter Pond because it was the Carter Oil Company that drilled the first well. As I have mentioned, the driller was rooming with us. He and Dad had become good friends. He was also an A-one type of guy. He realized the Earp family was a hard working group and just very good all-around people, but he had orders not to bring the well in but to shut it down and proclaim a dry hole. But for the sake of the family for whom he had formed an attachment, he determined to bring it in. He told my Dad what he planned to do. He brought it in up to the point where it would blow itself in and then went home and went to bed. He said to my dad, "It will blow in by morning." And sure enough by morning it was blowing over the top of the wooden rig. (See photo in the story "The Gusher.")

That was a time of rejoicing. Grandfather Earp died before the well came in but he had said that if there was oil there, he wanted each of his six sons to have a new Model-A Ford and line up to have their picture made for him. He wanted all of his six sons to line up in their new Model A's. He knew that was the first thing they would all buy. And it was. But my Grandfather didn't get to see that day as he died before even knowing that oil was found on his farm.

After the well came in, I remember the first vacation I ever had. We went with Uncle Obe and his family in our new car to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Our parents took hot baths in the famous mineral springs there. We stayed in real motels and ate "store-bought" meals.

As a result of the first well, many others were drilled on the farms around and much oil was taken out of that field. My Grandmother, as the main heir, came into a small fortune. She gave all of her eleven children $20,000 apiece. They each bought a good bottom farm except for her daughter, Aunt Coy Miller, who was a widow. Grandmother built a nice new home in Stroud for herself and Kenneth. Aunt Coy built a house exactly like it on the opposite corner. Grandmother also built the Church of God in Stroud.

Aunt Ina and her husband bought a farm close to Bristow. Uncles Obe and John bought near Midlothian. Uncle Earlie bought near Sparks, Uncle Otto bought north of Stroud, and Uncle Claud bought the Old Earp Homestead from Grandmother. Also Aunt Ona, who was a teacher, bought wheat land in Vega, Texas. She and her husband never farmed as they were both teachers and lived and taught in Oklahoma City.

My Daddy bought the old Jackson farm on South Fifth Street in Chandler that adjoins the old golf course on the north edge of Chandler. It has been known as the Jarvis Place for years. I was six and had been going some to the little country school I mentioned, but in Chandler I started to school to Miss Ola Faye Armstrong. I didn't make it that year under Miss Faye. I took the first grade again the next year. She was a great teacher. Later two of my children would be first graders under her tutoring. We lived on that farm for five years. They were good years. We had lots of friends up and down the streets.

At that time in the Tilghman Park there were two swimming pools. One for pre-school, which was free, and one for adults, who had to pay. We would go swimming in the small pool for free and then slip over into the larger one. I'm sure we all learned to swim by that maneuver. We would peddle Mother's tomatoes to the neighbors for spending money, and also deliver milk in glass quart bottles every evening on our milk routes. My Dad always kept lots of cows and we all learned to milk them early in life. He taught us to work and the old work ethic became a part of our lives. But life wasn't all work. There was always time for play too. Mother was always a lot of fun. She could play softball and horseshoes with the best of us. Dad too joined in the fun.

It was sometime during those five years while we lived in Chandler that Grandmother lost the family fortune. My Grandmother was an old-fashioned, shouting Church of God lady. A holy woman and righteous. She was also a widow of not much education and very trusting and naïve. When two salesmen came by offering her a great investment in gold mine stock, they persuaded her first of all that they were Christians. They would offer thanks at her table and get on their knees and pray with her like a Wesley.

She believed they were who they said they were and with the help of her banker, who my Dad always said was in on the scam, over a period of some weeks they persuaded her to buy their gold stock. Some of her children did their best to keep her from buying, even chasing the men off when they found them there. More than once Kenneth would call Dad and say, "Those men are here again." Dad would tie up his team at the end of the field, get in his car and rush to Stroud, and run them off by threatening their lives, but they always came back. Grandmother would be very unhappy at him for that. The children talked of putting her under a guardian but in order to accomplish that all eleven of them would have had to sign the paper, and some of them didn't want to do that to her.

At the same time they were getting Grandmother's money in this way, they were also selling her daughter Coy, who lived across from her, their worthless stock. She too was a widow and a Christian and they persuaded her to believe in their integrity. Once, at the end of all this, Dad and his brother Vernie followed the men to Tulsa, and with their guns threatening to blow their lights out they retrieved $10,000. I'm not sure if that was Grandmother's money or Aunt Coy's. Aunt Coy had to take in sewing the rest of her life to support herself and her daughter. The great bulk of Grandmother's money was gone, but she always had an income from her royalties. She lived to be ninety-nine years old. She didn't leave us any money but she left us a rich Christian heritage. I bless her memory.

As I said, we lived five years in Chandler. Then my Dad sold the farm there and bought another three miles south of Agra. He said town living was going to ruin us kids and he had to get us to the county. We loved living there in the Columbia community of Agra and going to school in the two-room school house. At that time Winifred George taught the first four grades, and Hugh Baird taught fifth through eighth. I was in the fifth at that time. My best friend was Naomi George, who was also in the fifth. There was a Friends Church in the community, and our social lives were enhanced by attendance there and by all the other activities that the community afforded. There were pie suppers, sewing parties, revivals, and ice cream socials. It seems there was always something going on for the young people, well chaperoned by our elders, of course. I shall never forget the friends we made in Columbia Community or the good times we had there. We always had good fellowship with our neighbors, the Georges, who lived up the hill from us. They were a great family of eight children, mother and father and aged grandmother.

We started to high school at Agra High, riding the school bus morning and evening. Ernest was a senior the year I was a freshman. My first boyfriend was Chester Key. We double dated with a couple called Willie Williamson and Ruby Watkins, who later married.

Opal, 1934 (above).

There was an outside Baptist revival in our community the year I was fifteen. It was held by a Rev. Hatchett, who was also Principal of Agra High and pastor of the Agra Baptist Church. Among others who were converted to Christ in that meeting was my sister Vera Dene and myself. I'm not sure about my conversion but I did repent and believe. We wanted to be baptized afterward but it seems Baptists only baptize into their church. Our folks would not hear of that so they took us to the Stroud Church of God one Sunday morning, and we both joined the Church and that afternoon were baptized in the old Carter Pond that my dad had helped to build ten years earlier.

In my sophomore year my Dad and his brother Vernie traded for a farm. We moved back to Chandler again. The farm he traded for was one mile north, half a mile west, and then half a mile north of Chandler. It was heart breaking to take leave of my friends at Columbia and Agra High. It was lonely and sad to start back into school at Chandler. I found that all my old friends that I used to play with had grown up too, had acquired new friends and new interests, but worst of all was to find and to feel that I didn't belong anymore. But after I got over my lonesomeness for old friends and Agra and began to enter into the spirit of Chandler High, I began to feel that I belonged again. I began to see the advantage of this high school over Agra and to feel that my Father had done the right thing in moving back to Chandler. I was about seventeen at this time.

Catching the school bus was no easy feat in those days. My Dad always kept a large herd of milk cows. We were up at daylight putting feed into their individual troughs. Each cow knew her own stall. When she put her head into the stanchion and bean to eat, we fastened the stanchion on her neck until she was milked. In the spring and winter Dad had green wheat fields for them to run on. Usually their bowels got very runny on the green wheat and their tails got nasty. It wasn't any fun to get swatted across the face with such as that. I hated it. In the summer their tails got infested with cockleburs, and that hurt enough to make you angry. Sometimes while sitting on the three-legged milk stool you could catch and hold that cocklebur tail between your thigh and calf.

When the milking was done, the milk had to be separated. You strained the milk into the separator tank, turned the handle, and the milk was separated from the cream. It took two of us to do this as one turned the handle while the other strained the milk and changed the buckets when they were full. Then the calves had to be fed, and often there was a new born one who had to be taught to drink. You did this by putting your hand into the bucket of warm milk and letting the calf suck your fingers until he learned the drinking process. Three or four times and he usually had it down pat. By this time Mother had breakfast ready.

Then we made our own lunches, got cleaned up and dressed, and walked a half mile to the corner. If the bus driver saw us coming he would wait, but if we were late he went on. We were left to walk the mile and three quarters to school. We tried hard not to miss the bus. By the time we on the bus it was loaded. There was a large group of kids in the back who seemed always to be having a great old time. They were from the Oak Grove community and had known each other for many years. I envied them. They always seemed to be having so much fun. As we were the last ones on, we were the first ones off in the evening. When we go off at the first stop, we went out the back door. There was this young man on the bus who always seemed to manage to flip me on the behind as I got off. I later learned his name was Archie Pounds. More about him later.

When we got home from school the first thing we did was to change our clothes. We had chore clothes and chore shoes to wear. One kept her school clothes clean for the next day. There was wood and chips to carry in, eggs to gather, cows to get in from the pasture, milking, separating, calf feeding, milk buckets to wash, water to pump and carry to the house, and lamp chimneys to clean. Finally, when we were all finished Mother had a big pan of cornbread and fresh milk ready for our supper. It was always so good and we were always so hungry, even though we had already eaten everything in sight in the kitchen when we got in from school.

We each had our assigned chores but naturally we had a good bit of sibling rivalry. My sister Vera Dene and I seemed never to get along too well even though we shared the same room and the same bed. We were nearly the same age and the same size but very different in personality. She was always rather tomboyish and hated housework and cooking. I guess I was a little more feminine and loved to try my hand at cooking. She was always outgoing in personality and had lots of friends, while I was of a quiet nature and mostly liked a special friend. Looking back I guess I was a little jealous of her and I always considered her prettier than me. She had lots of pride and she and Mother always liked to fix up and pretty up as much as possible, while I was minus that pride and was considered, even by Mother, as "common Opal."

Ernie was the dreamer. He was always dreaming about exotic places and faraway lands that he was going to visit someday. He was always good natured and helpful. I can never remember quarreling or having a fight with Ernie, though he liked to hide around the corner of the barn and let you have a surprise corncob on your head, and he liked it even better if the corncob was wet. But it was always in fun. Ernie hated the farm so when he graduated from Agra High at eighteen, Dad decided to send him to Hills Business School. Of course, he had to get a job to help out.

He got a job "busting suds"--washing dishes in a cafe. He wasn't happy at that so he took a job as a traveling book salesman and headed toward California. He arrived broke and no job so he worked picking fruit and picking up almonds while pawning his clothes to live. He did that for a few months, and then one day we looked down the road and saw this dirty, ragged tramp-looking fellow with worn out shoes coming in at the gate. It was Ernie. Hungry and broke, but he had seen some of the world, even to getting himself locked in a freight train boxcar and stranded on a railroad spur. By good grace someone came along and heard him yelling and pounding inside the car and let him out. He had been asleep when he was stranded. After that he joined the Army.

Wendel was my pal, my sidekick, a sweet little kid but with a temper when riled. He was easy to love and to get along with. Loved horses and loved the farm, and very intelligent. Perhaps the most intelligent of the four of us. Since Dad saw that he loved the farm and because he was the only one of us left at home and Dad really did need him on the farm, he talked him into quitting school his sophomore year by giving him a start of farming animals, a team, and some dairy stock. I think he even gave him $50 a week for spending. After about a year and a half, World War II broke out. Wendel was only seventeen and couldn't join the war effort without parental approval, so he sold his farming start and he and Dena headed to California to work in a defense plant. When he was eighteen they came home and he joined the Marine Paratroopers, while Vera Dean went to Tulsa to work in a defense plant helping to build airplanes. In the meantime she had been dating a handsome young man named Ted Phillips. When the war started Ted enlisted in the Air Corps, but they corresponded throughout the war, and when it was over they were married and went to live in Lovington, New Mexico.

When I was about seventeen years old, Kenneth married a girl called Laura Withers. I'll never forget the day he brought her to our home to meet all us us. She didn't know until after they were married that he had any family but Grandmother, and when she did hear of us she wanted to meet us. Through Laura we all came to know Kenneth and to love him as a brother. Until then he had seemed like a fancy cousin that we didn't know very well and didn't care about knowing any better. Laura was such a sweet and lovely young lady that her loving and laughing ways soon endeared her to all of us and we knew that she genuinely cared about us. They moved to Chandler after that and they spent many Sundays with us. We discovered the brother that we never really had known very well and found him to be a pretty special person. There was a new bonding that happened between all of us. His job took them to Oklahoma City for a while and then to Dallas. Kenneth had graduated from Draughn's Business School and was an accountant. After they moved to Dallas two beautiful children were born to them, Susan and Kenny. We didn't see much of them after that. Perhaps once or twice a year.

I understand that Kenneth began to have a drinking problem as the years passed along. He died with an aneurism in his fifty-ninth year. I've always believed that this problem had its roots in a sense of rejection that he must have had as a child growing up. Was he a lonesome little boy? Did he feel unwanted and unloved by his family? Did my Dad make a terrible mistake by giving the boy to his aging grandparents? Surely they should have thought of the welfare of the child. We'll never really know the answer to all of our questions, but I'll always be happy and thankful for Laura, who brought our brother back to us. At his funeral Laura told me that he knew he couldn't live long and had made all arrangements for his funeral and burial.

She also told me, for she knew that I was very anxious to know, that she had overheard him praying several times in a back bedroom. He had lived with a praying Grandmother and had been saved himself when he was a teenager, so I know that he understood the way back to God. And knowing God as a God of great Mercy, I believe that I will meet Kenneth again on the streets of the New Jerusalem when the mists have rolled away. Where there will be no more heartaches, no more tears, and no more rejection.

When I was growing up it was a habit of farmers to take Saturday afternoon off from work and go to town to do their weekly shopping. Saturday was called "butter and egg day," when the farmers brought their cream, eggs, and produce to town to trade for necessities that they could not raise. It was a nice break from work and on Saturday afternoon the streets of Chandler would be crowded with farm families. Mothers and fathers shopping and boys and girls walking up and down streets, in and out of stores, looking for the best bargain to spend their nickel on if they were lucky enough to have one. Sometimes we would get just pennies to spend and that would take careful shopping of just a penny here and a penny there. Sometimes there was no penny but we were just happy to be in town with so many of our friends. It was on just such a Saturday afternoon that my friend Christina Hurst (who later became my sister-in-law) was sitting in my Dad's car visiting and watching people when this certain young man came down the street, the one who had flipped my behind when I exited the school bus. Christina honked the horn at him and he came to the car to visit with her for a few minutes.

After he had gone on down the street, I happened to say to her that I would like to have a date with that good-looking guy. I didn't know that she would tell him what I had said but she must have tattled on me the next time she saw him, for not long after that he drove up to our door in his Dad's Model A Ford. Wendel and I were on the back porch separating the milk when he came, and I had just gone in the house. Wendel shut off the separator and came in to say that there was a young man outside who wanted to see me. It was Archie Pounds come to ask me to go to the football game with him. He had just come by to see if I meant what I had said to Chris. Now in high school during football season we had pep rallies before Friday night games. Everyone got the old school spirit. I had never been to a game and didn't know the first thing about it but of course I wanted to go.

Now a strange thing happened on our first date. Archie had given his then girlfriend Fern Suggs fifty cents to buy two tickets for the game. She evidently pocketed the fifty cents and brought him two outdated tickets. She must have thought they wouldn't be going to the game as there was something going on at the Oak Grove school house. He did take her to the school house but decided to go to the game and also to see if Opal Earp really meant what she had said to her friend. He says he almost lost his nerve and drove past our road but thought, "what the heck, she can do no more than say no." But she didn't say no. When we came to the gate at the game, I went on in ahead of him, but when he gave his two tickets to Miss Gillian, who was the payee, also our high school math teacher, she said, "Archie, I'm sorry, I can't accept these tickets. These are for last week's game." He just happened to have a lone fifty cent piece in his pocket. He told me a long time afterward that if he had not had the fifty cents he would have been so embarrassed that he would have turned and left. I don't believe he would have because I couldn't have gone in either and had no way to get home. I think he would have explained about Fern and we would have done something else. That was the beginning of our friendship. We had to contend with Fern all along the way.

The following Saturday night we double-dated with another couple. Again we had a problem. We went to a country dance and on the way home Archie's Dad's car broke down. Instead of calling home for help, which we could have done, Archie decided to wait for a friend of his who was supposed to come home from his date on this same road where we were stranded. The four of us had a good time talking and laughing and playing with a kitten which we found in the road while the time went by. Finally at about 1:30 a.m. the friend came by and took me home. My Dad was up in his nightshirt, the light was on, and he was irate when I came in. He was ready to lay the leather on me but my Mother believed my story and persuaded Dad that I wasn't lying. She reminded him that I wasn't in the habit of lying. Good for me that I wasn't. He finally calmed down and went back to bed but not before he had ordered me not to see that young man again.

So we just wrote to each other for a few weeks until Dad relented. I really liked Archie. He was a lot of fun, well mannered, treated me like a lady, honest, hard working, and good looking. Sometimes he brought along his guitar and played and sang love songs to me. We rode around in his Dad's car on Sundays. I met his parents and was invited to Sunday dinner. I loved to be with him. I had dated other guys but Archie was special. A little jealous--no dating others, just him. I was a senior and he had graduated the year before. He was my date for the Junior-Senior Banquet. I'm sure there were some jealous ex-girlfriends there because he had dated a lot of girls. Especially Fern. She didn't give up easily.

The first year after Archie graduated from high school he stayed at home and helped his Dad on the farm. He yearned to go to college at Oklahoma Baptist University at Shawnee to become a history teacher but there was no money and no job to be had at the school. In the spring of his last year at home his Mother had pneumonia. She was ill and for weeks not expected to live. Sarah quit school to care for her mother, and Bessie and Earl Strong came home to help out. They were all so weary from losing sleep and working night and day. One day Archie laid down on the floor to rest and fell asleep. While he was asleep, Fern came by (she lived about a mile west of them) and stole my class ring off of his finger. When he woke and realized he had lost it, he was frantic. He searched everywhere and when he learned that Fern had been there while he slept he just knew she must have it. He was afraid I would get in trouble for letting him wear it.

My class ring had cost $9.00 at the time I graduated, and my Dad just couldn't see paying so much for a ring. It happened that he had a sow that had a litter of pigs and died. Dad agreed to give me a pig to buy my ring with if I would raise the litter. I carried many buckets of milk and slop to them until they were nearly grown. He was true to his promise and gave me the shoat, which he sold for me and I ordered my 1939 class ring. Was I ever proud of it! Archie came by one day to tell me how he got it back. Seems he invited Fern to go to Oak Grove with to some kind of affair. She was glad to go. When he got there he parked outside the schoolhouse to visit with her. He told her he knew she had my class ring and he had to get it back or he was in trouble with my Dad. He said to her, "If you will give it to me, I promise to break up with Opal, and you and I will get back together." She reached somewhere in a pocket and held out her hand. In it was my ring. He took it, then opened the passenger side door and said, "Now get out." He then took his foot and shoved her to help her get out. That was the last trouble we had with Fern. She had played her last card and it wasn't a trump. Later she went to California and we heard she married.

Archie belonged to the National Guards. They met once a month, and each year they went off to bivouac for two weeks. That fall while they were gone he had pneumonia and wasn't supposed to come back when the Guard did because he was ill. When all the guys were back and I hadn't seen or heard from him, and I had heard that he had pneumonia, my Daddy saw me crying and said, "why I believe she loves that guy." I was so sad and my heart hurt and it was the first time that I knew that I loved him. Later, when he told me he loved me and asked me to marry him some day, I was happy to say yes. He said I was the one he had been looking for, and I knew he was the only one I wanted. He gave me a small diamond engagement ring. I was mighty proud of it.

In the meantime he had gone to work for Boggs Mercantile Store for $9.00 a week. The hours were long and the work very demanding, but in those days lots of people were out of work and jobs were scarce. The first thing he bought for himself was a 1934 Ford coupe. It was teal green with black fenders, and he came driving up to our place with that coonskin tail tied to the chrome greyhound of the radiator cap. In his very own wheels and that big grin on his face--my, he was a sight to be seen. We were so proud of that little car!

We were married January 14, 1940. The day before, which was Saturday, he managed to buy the license and engage the preacher. My Mother bought me new shoes and a beautiful new dress. It was silk crepe of navy blue, with tiny covered buttons down the front to the waist, short capped sleeves, and the caps trimmed in white fur.

Archie and Opal, wedding photo (above).

Mom Pounds fixed a wonderful wedding dinner for us and invited my family. Archie's family were all there, including Bessie and Earl who were living in Chandler at the time. That afternoon Archie had to go to his National Guard meeting, but come sundown we tried to make an escape but were stopped before we got to the highway. Two carloads of young people turned us around and made us go to my home. It was good Archie had bought a lot of candy and cigars because we really got chivareed. They came from town, from Stony Point, from Oak Grove, and all around. I didn't know how everyone knew we were getting married but word like that gets around. They brought their cowbells, horns, and anything that would make a big noise. The highlight was that the bride and groom must kiss. They stood us up on a cream can (I don't know yet how we got our feet planted on that cream can lid without falling off), but their hands were helping us stay put and we brought it off. Archie didn't want to pass out treats until the Oak Grove gang got there, and they weren't coming until after church. We tried to hide in the bedroom but we were discovered hiding under the covers in my bedroom. Two guys were there who everyone called the Oakley twins--big guys they were--and they decided to dunk Archie in the horse tank. Remember it was winter and ice was two to three inches thick on the tank, but his brother Melvin stood in the outside door with two doubled up fists and warned that the first one who tried to would have to do it over his clenched fists. They backed off then. Thank God they did. It was a great chivaree!

Next we had to find a place to live. After about a week of living with family we heard of an older couple, the Williamses, who wanted to sell out and move to California. We went to see them. They rented us their small three-room house for $5.00 a month, and we bought their little antique cook stove, and a green three-legged icebox (the forth leg was a small wooden block). Archie had already purchased a little table and four chairs while living at Bessie and Earl's. He and Earl had put the chairs together and in doing so Earl had broken a leg on one. They had painted them green. Also green was an old fashioned cabinet, which we had for years afterwards. Archie also owned a bed and dresser. We bought the Williams' living room articles which consisted of an old fashioned duofold which folded out into a bed, two rocking chairs, and a king wood heater. Our friend Jim Gardner gave us two pairs of nice lace panels for the living room. I used them for years.

First year of marriage, 1940 (above).

Also we bought about twelve young pullets from them--all this for $25.00. We were rich except there was no water well on the place, and Archie had to haul drinking water from the school house nearby. He to fill ten gallon cream cans and load and unload them in the trunk of the car. My Dad had given us $25.00 and a nice jersey cow, and Archie's Dad gave him a nice jersey heifer. The Oak Grove group had given us a wedding shower. So we started up housekeeping on our own. I never liked that antique cook stove, so early on we ordered a pretty oil burning white cook stove with a real oven. We ordered it from the Spiegel Catalog for a few dollars a month. I loved that stove and used it for years. It was beautiful.

Bell Cow Creek ran past the place, so I carried water from the creek to water the chickens and for other purposes. One night I forgot to fasten the chickens up and a varmint got in and relieved me of them. Wendel brought his team over in the spring and plowed up a garden spot. It wasn't a very successful garden. Archie and Otie Simpson, who was our neighbor on the west, shared rides to work as they both worked for Boggs. That left me the car. I couldn't drive as my Dad never let any of us drive his car except Mother. So what happened? I learned to drive. I would drive over to see my folks which was about a mile away on dirt roads. Then one day I got real brave and drove into town. That was a milestone and I've been herding one around ever since. Still not a good driver but I manage.

The next best thing that happened was that I got pregnant. When I was about five months, we moved into town. We found a little place about a block and a half from Boggs where we could keep our cow. We had running water, electricity, and natural gas. How wonderful! Archie could run home for lunch. What a nice change.

Then there was the baby coming. We were over anxious. We both hoped for a boy but didn't know what having a baby was all about. I just wanted to go home to Mama. So when I thought I had about a week to go, we went to Mother's. It was more like three to four weeks before he made his appearance on March 24, 1941--a nine pound and ten ounce boy, whom we named A.M. after his Daddy. He was the first grandchild of my family, and we all loved him so much and spoiled him not a little. In about two weeks we took him home. He was a very good baby and we were proud parents. When he laughed he had a deep dimple in his cheek. So precious.

Tacker Bridge over Deep Fork south of Chandler, 1941 (above).

Archie's Grandpa Pounds died when A.M. was four months old. He had been making his home with Bessie and Earl and had no home of his own. After his death they moved to Tulsa and we moved into their house on West 5th Street for a few months. Then we moved back to the country again. Back to kerosene lamps and wood heaters and carrying water uphill from a windmill. The place belonged to Doc Adams and was about a half mile east of our first home. A.M. was about eight months old when Ernie came to tell me good-bye. He was home on leave but as war was declared on Japan his leave was canceled and he had to report back to base immediately. He was sent immediately to Alaska as they expected the Japanese to try to get through to the States from there. They did bomb Alaska but didn't do a lot of damage. From there he was transferred to Walla Walla, Washington. While there he wrote to Christine Hurst and asked her to come to Walla Walla and marry him. She did and they were married. She and Dena had been employed in a plant building airplanes for defense. They had been rooming together.

When Japan attacked Hawaii on December 7, 1941, America was ill prepared for war. The whole nation had to be mobilized and while we were preparing ourselves the Japanese were taking all of the South Sea islands and everything else they could gobble up. Also Hitler's Germany was doing the same in Europe. Soon we were fighting two wars on two different fronts. We won the war through the blood of our sons and the fierce patriotism of our countrymen. Our men and boys went off to fight and the women and disabled went to the defense plants. Some men who had families were left on the farm. "An army travels on its stomach" is a true saying. By the time the Chandler National Guard was called up we were on the farm. Archie was well trained, as were all the Guard, and he was raring to go, but his folks and I talked him out of it. He had a child and was on the farm, so he was reclassified from 1A to 2A. He still sometimes regrets that he didn't go. He nearly did go, though. When we finally had talked him out of it, he went to see his sergeant to ask for his papers to be taken removed from the envelope. The sergeant said he had just mailed them all in, but if his papers were still in the Post Office he could get them for him. They went to see and they hadn't been sent on. If they had been, there would not have been anything he could have done about it. A close call.

Archie's long range goal was to be a farmer and someday to own our own farm. In January 1942 Archie's Dad asked us to come and move in with them and he would help us get started farming. Without his help we never could have got a start, for it was very expensive to start from zero to go to farming. So we decided to do it. One cold icy January day we moved our small possessions into their upstairs area and stored things under the stair area. All we owned and our baby. Archie kept working at Boggs until spring plowing time came. He also kept going to Guard duty until they were called to go overseas. I helped with the chores. His Dad was not very well and hired help couldn't be found because of the war. His sister Sarah was gone from home by this time. She had a job in town and her own apartment. She was also very much in love with Ira Howser, whom she married later. Ira was called into the war effort, but because of stomach ulcers he was honorably discharged.

Soon it was spring on the farm and work began in earnest. Archie quit Boggs except for Saturdays. He still worked the long hours Saturday, from 7 a.m. until about 11 p.m., and he worked on the farm plowing, sowing, cultivating, haying, etc. Work is never done on a farm. He did manage to buy a few cows, a team, and some tools with money he made at Boggs. It didn't cost us anything to live in with his folks so we had some free money to buy a few things for our future farming when we would be on our own. It was a busy year for all of us. I helped Mom Pounds make garden and with the canning and raising the young chickens. We had bought about fifty Rhode Island Red pullet chicks in the spring and were raising them with her Leghorns. I also helped with hoeing in the cotton and corn fields when needed. Mom cared for A.M. We really worked hard and of course there were always the chores.

One very important event did happen that year. The five of us started going into town on Sunday nights to the Nazarene Church. It was my first contact with the Nazarenes. These people were to become very important in my life. Reverend Willisson was pastor at the time. He was a wonderful preacher with a very sweet and caring spirit. We all loved him and the church. He was the first one I had ever heard to preach on sanctification. I had been saved, I thought, and baptized when I was fourteen, but when we moved from the Columbia community back to Chandler we stopped attending church. Of course I backslid but under Brother Willisson's ministry I went to the altar and asked for pardon from my sins. Now I had never had a real experience with God before in my life. I had taken my salvation by faith (how else can you have it?), but the Holy Spirit had never witnessed to me my salvation. Again I repented and accepted by faith but my heart wanted more. I guess I've always had a heart that panted after God. So in the evenings when I would bring my baby upstairs to put him to bed (we slept upstairs that year) I would rock him to sleep and pray, "Lord, if you really have saved me and I have been born again, I really do need to know it. Would you please somehow help me to know if I really am saved and my name written down in Heaven. It's hard to testify to something you're not really sure about." One Saturday night I had put my baby to bed and on my knees I was saying my prayers when suddenly the sweet Holy Spirit came and touched my spirit. It was as though I was lifted up into the Glory world--out of myself and into Him. I can't really explain it but I knew I was saved. How wonderfully faithful He is to us unworthy mortals.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, gentle reader, but before the summer was over I had lost my sweet victory and had backslid. I don't now how to explain it except to say that it wasn't easy to live in the same house with one's in-laws. Two women in the same kitchen and one baby--also myself a babe in Christ who hadn't found her source of strength, the Word and prayer, so the devil stirred around in our fellowship and my carnal nature took offense. Mom Pounds wasn't sanctified either so sometimes we didn't see eye to eye. If I had only humbled myself and apologized all could have been alright and my spirit restored, but pride wouldn't allow it. My pride. So I lost my sweet fellowship with God and it would be twelve years before I would find His sweet presence again. A sad chapter in my life.

In the meantime that fall we moved out. My Dad wasn't well and had no one to help with the farming since Wendel had joined the Marines and gone off to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, so he asked Archie to farm his land. We moved onto a small farm a quarter mile north of Dad, onto what we have always called the old Lynn place. By this time we had a team, several cows, some laying hens, and a few tools all paid for. There wa a pond below the house so the stock had water but no water for us so again we had to haul our drinking water. I did my laundry at Mother's and she gave me eggs until my hens began to prodce. I also made garden with her. She raised a bumper crop of potatoes that year. It was a good year.

The same year Melvin rented the Willis Eyestone farm, across from Dad's farm. He also bought all of their cattle, chickens, and tools, so we enjoyed fellowship with them for a couple of years. We played a lot of canasta and made ice cream together. Archie and Melvin shared farm work. We all worked hard but we were young and enjoyed each other and the farming. In the fall of 1942 we rented our own farm. It was sixty acres just west of our first home, the Williams place. It had a nice house and a windmill almost at the backdoor! The water was wonderful. The land was good and life was very good. Archie bought more cows, another team, and a tractor. We had plenty of oats and corn from Dad's place and rented the place across from us for more pasture.

In the meantime we had sold Wendel our V8 Ford (which he and Dena drove to California to work in the shipyards.) They were there until he was eighteen and was old enough to join the Marines. He had to come home then but Dena decided she wasn't going home. She had a good job and was having a good time in California, but Wendel had promised Dad he would bring her home with him when he came back. She said she was staying in California. He told he that he had promised Dad that he would bring her home with him and she was going if he had to hog-tie her and put her in the car. She came.

After we sold Wendel the V8 Archie bought a nice little black Model A pickup. It was great for the farm. We hauled our cream and eggs to town in it twice a week. Even made a trip to Tulsa to visit Bessie and Earl. It was a "running dude," and we loved that little pickup.

During these two and a half years A.M. was growing fast and we enjoyed him very much. He had a big collie dog named Friend that loved him too. When he was outside Friend was always there. Sometimes Friend coaxed him too far from the house and I would have to call them back. He was very protective of A.M. I didn't dare spank him outside or he would act as if he would bite me. As he was the first child I thought he had to be perfect, so I guess I was a pretty strict Mama. He soon learned to climb a tree when I got after him, and by the time he came down I had forgotten what the discipline was about, or I may have just wanted to. He was a busy little boy--chasing the children, riding the young shoats, helping to gather the eggs. We enjoyed him so much we decided he needed a little brother. So in the year of 1943 I was pregnant again.

Archie wanted a boy because he said girls were such a responsibility (as though any child isn't) but I wanted a girl. She came into our home September 21, 1944. When I awoke that morning I knew I was in labor. So after breakfast Archie went over to my folks to call the doctor. We had no telephone at that time. We both supposed we had plenty of time, so Archie went over there and was visiting around with Dad when he finally told Mother that I was sick and he needed to call Dr. Smith. She got excited, and she and Chris (who was visiting them at the time) came quickly. Also the doctor. No one had told us that the second child wouldn't take nearly so long to birth as the first. Anyway, Doc Smith only had time to set up his birthing table before Gerry was born. She was plump and beautiful. After Mother had bathed her and dressed her, she wrapped her in a blanket and said, "Here, Archie, is your girl." He reached for her with joy and from that time and ever afterward she was "Daddy's girl." She was a good and sweet baby. A precious treasure. Still is. We named her Opal Geraldine. I loved the name Geraldine but we couldn't decide on a name to go with it, so Archie decided he liked the Opal in front so we named her Opal Geraldine. She was called Genie growing up but when she went off to college they called her Gerry, and somehow that has stuck. We like it too. My sister-in-law Hazel Pounds gave birth to a baby girl about the same time. They called her Melba Raye.

When Gerry was nine months old we discovered we were to have another child. We weren't really ready for another one so soon but the Lord knew best.

The year of 1945 Archie had rented two additional farms and part of another. There were still no extra men or boys around to hire for help. He and Melvin exchanged work at times helping each other. Then Archie got discouraged. Couldn't keep up. He shouldn't have tried to farm the whole country, in my opinion, by himself. That same year in the fall, Claude Jondahl, who had a Phillips Petroleum Agency in town, offered him $35.00 a week to work for him delivering gas and kerosene over the county. He decided to take it. That kind of wages looked good to him, so in the fall we traded all of our stock, grain, hay, and chickens, for a house in town on Bennett Avenue. We hadn't remembered how much of our living was made on the farm. We had milk, butter, eggs, cornmeal (we ground our own corn at the mill), and I had lots of canned vegetables and fruit. Now we had to buy it all, so that nice salary didn't look so good after all. It was awfully nice to have and enjoy all of the electric lights and running water again, and also a bathroom. We were happy. The war was over, and America had won.

The boys were home from the wars. Wendel was home again all intact except for scars on body and soul. He married Lavonne Graham and used his G.I. loan to go to Hills Business College. Ernie made it home safely except for battle scares. He also went back to school and became a teacher. He and Chris had two lovely daughters, Ernestine and Elaine. He was also called him to preach, so he worked as well in the ministry in the Church of God, affiliated as pastor and evangelist.

On the evening of April 2, 1946, at about 7:00 p.m., Wayne Edward Pounds was born, eight and a half pounds. My Mother had had surgery and couldn't be there, and Mom Pounds was engaged elsewhere, so Hazel Pounds came to assist Dr. Smith. Archie finally had the other son that he wanted while on the farm, but we weren't on the farm now. Archie and I called him Wayne and his Aunt Hazel gave him the middle name. He was a beautiful baby, perfect in every way. A little long and lanky at birth but he filled out and at about six months we could see that his eyes were going to be brown like his Daddy's. We were so glad as he was our first to be brown-eyed. He was more of an olive complexion than the first two. He was a good baby, always happy and contented. A very welcome addition to our little family.

Wayne was about four months old when we sold our house on Bennett. We had paid $1600 for it, and Archie sold it for $3200, doubling our money. We next bought a home on West 5th Street, which we owned until Wayne was about eighteen months old. By this time my Dad had sold the farm and bought a truck. He was leaving for California, and as Archie had a bad case of hemorrhoids he was ready to quit driving for Jondahl's gasoline delivery business, so we decided to go with him. We were able to sell our house on 5th Street. Melvin's and Bessie's families were living at Kelseyville in Lake County. They were working for a rancher whose name was Benson. Mom Pounds was keeping house and caring for Mrs. Benson, and Dad Pounds was working in the pear orchard owned by them. They had several cabins on the ranch which were used by migrant workers. They generously let us stay in one until we could get settled.

Benson cabins about 1948 (above).

Archie soon found work pruning pear trees. He enjoyed that. It was a good change from driving a gasoline truck. We enjoyed our six months there. We had a good fellowship with Archie's family. My Dad didn't care much for Lake County. He and Mother went down south around Tulare thinking to rent land for him and Archie to raise cotton on, but he didn't find anything suitable so my folks went back to Oklahoma and bought a home in Stroud.

On Hoover Dam, about 1948 (above).

By spring we were ready to go home. We were loaded and about ready to go when I came down with pneumonia. Earlier in the winter Gerry had pneumonia, so we were both in the hospital at different times while we were there. About the time I was able to leave Wayne got sick. Because of a virus causing vomiting and diarrhea he had become dehydrated. We didn't recognize how ill he was until his Grandpa Pounds said, "This child is sick, bad sick. He needs a doctor." We immediately bundled him up and went to find one. It was evening and we were fortunate to find one in Kelseyville who knew immediately what was wrong. Wayne was dehydrated. We were instructed to give him salt water to drink every hour all night, which we did. The salt made him thirsty and caused him to want water, which was the idea. He was very ill for a time, which caused us to postpone our trip home. We rented a cabin in Kelseyville for a few weeks. It was close to Bessie and Earl so we played a lot of monopoly while waiting on our baby to get better. By the time we were ready to leave, Mom and Dad decided to go home also. So April first we headed back to Chandler. All of our earthly goods in a trailer pulled along behind. It had been a good trip in spite of illness. Archie's job with Jondahl was waiting for him. We rented a small house across from Jess and Zelda Alsip. It was owned by Beatrice Saulsberry.

As soon as we were settled I took A.M. to Miss Faye's first grade class. He had started to school at Kelseyville when he was six. His teacher there told me he was doing really well in school, but in May just before school was out Miss Faye asked me to come to see her. It seemed that the first grade at Kelseyville was equal to kindergarten and he could not do the first grade work in her class. She felt it would be a hardship to pass him into the second grade and recommended that he take the first grade again. Remembering what a great teacher she was (she had been my first grade teacher and later taught Wayne first grade), I went along with her suggestion. A.M. got a good foundation in the first grade and later was able to skip the third and catch up with his age group.

Soon after Archie's Aunt Mae (Stidham) James's husband died, she rented us her place in the country as she and her son Billy George had moved into town. This home was three miles west of town on Highway 66.

  Aunt May's Place, 1949 (above).

There Archie bought me a new gas stove which burned butane. We also had a new General Electric refrigerator. We had a few cows, a pony, chickens, and a garden, which we bought from Aunt Mae. While there A.M. rode the school bus. The kids buried their little bull dog terrier with a real kiddie funeral behind the hen house. We had good neighbors, the Mose Woodys, with whom we made ice cream sometimes and who would do our chores when we went vacationing. We did go to Turner Falls on a little excursion, and went swimming in the pool under the falls. My mother also went with us. The last time we went swimming with her. A good time was had by all.

My Dad had sold his farm and approached Archie about going into retail business together. Ned Neer had bought a grocery store in Carney and was ready to sell out. Archie and Dad bought out his store. Archie had worked in Boggs Mercantile for several years, and also in their meat market, so he was no novice. In 1948 we went into a partnership with Dad in the grocery store in Carney. Dad had furnished most of the money and we were supposed to buy his half of the store after three years. By that time we owned half-interest in the business.

The Earp Family in Carney, Easter 1951 (above).

We had a lovely lady, Sarah Gazaway, working for us. She was a native of Carney and well known and well loved by everyone around. She was good for business. Sometimes I helped out on Saturdays, when the hours were from 7:30 a.m. until 11:30 at night. They were long hard days. Through the summer months the merchants hired an outdoor movie theater to come to town, which everyone enjoyed, but the customers would go watch the show first and do their shopping afterwards, which made for long hours on Saturday.

We first lived south of town (south of the railroad) on a small acreage owned by Sarah and Ed Gazaway. It was here A.M. learned to ride his first bicycle. It was a small, used orange bomber but he mastered it. Here it happened that Wayne fell through the barn loft and split his head on a manger below. He and Gerry were playing house in the loft and Gerry had used some some cardboard box pieces to cover the hole in the loft that was used to throw down hay for the cattle. Wayne forgot and walked out on the cardboard. He fell on a manger below but broke his fall on a young hen who was busy laying her first egg. His head was split pretty badly. We took him to Chandler, and Doc Smith stitched him up. They never forgot that experience.

We next moved to a house across from the school. It was just off of Main Street. It was close to school and much closer to Archie's work. Archie had a good friend in Carney named Blyford Dodd, who traded with us, and he and Archie would sometimes go to Lake Carl Blackwell fishing when Archie could get away.

One Saturday Archie worked sick all day. He was in a lot of pain. By morning I took him in to see Dr. Mileham in Chandler. He said, "you have appendicitis and I am making an appointment at St. Anthony's Hospital. I want you there immediately." We called Sarah and Ira to take us, which they were happy to do. His appendix was ready to rupture and they operated immediately. Archie was just sure the store would never operate without him but of course it did. For the first time in my life, and I'm sure the only time, I drove in Oklahoma City by myself. I've never been a very confident driver but when you think you can, you can. At that time Wendel and Lavonne were living in a renovated army barracks which the government had provided for the ex-soldiers, and he was going to school at Hills Business School. I stayed with them some and drove back and forth to the hospital. Mother was keeping our kids. A tough time for all of us but we made it.

While we were living across from the school Gerry started first grade. Her teacher was Miss Goldie Shafer. Gerry liked school but she would rather stay home and play with Wayne. She and Wayne were so nearly the same age that they were "buddies." The last and third year that we were in Carney we had moved again. It was about a block and a half from school. It was here that one day Gerry decided she wasn't going to go to school. She had come home for lunch and she and Wayne were playing with some little cars in the dirt beside the house. It was time for her to go back to school so I went out and told her. She said, "I'm not going." I said, "Oh, but you are." I knew better than to let her get away with that. She would try it again and again. I knew I had to win this battle of wills. She was a very strong-willed child. I don't think she was too happy in school because she didn't talk plain and some of the kids, as kids do, would make fun of her. Some of them said she was tongue-tied. (She learned to talk plain under Miss Shafer's tutoring.) So I got me a little switch and proceeded to make her go to school. She fought against me all the way. She was a chunky child and must have weighed about fifty pounds. I dragged her and fought with her probably halfway to the school house. When I saw I might not win and could not get her to school on my own, I told Wayne (he was about four and a half years old and of course taking this all in) to go to the store and tell Daddy that I needed him. While he was gone Gerry and I sat on the ground and waited. I held on to her. Didn't dare turn loose of her because I knew she would run. By the time Archie and Wayne got back we were both crying. What did Archie do? He just picked her up and set her on his shoulders and carried her to school. She was dirty and tear-streaked and so embarrassed. School was in session but Goldie was sweet and understood. Gerry never tried that again. After she learned to speak plain she loved school and was always a good student.

After three years in Carney it was time for Dad to sell us his half of the store and move on but Dad wasn't ready to sell. The store was making money for them. Business was good but Dad and Archie weren't seeing things alike and tensions were getting stiffer between them. Archie was wearied with the situation and ready for a change. So we sold out to Dad for about half of what we had in it just to dissolve the partnership, we moved back to Chandler, and again Archie went back to work for Claud Jondahl. We first moved back into Aunt Mae's house for a while until we bought a neat little house in town on First Street. It was across the street from Dr. Smith's home. I loved that little house. It had running water in the kitchen, an indoor toilet, a screened-in porch for the washing machine, and hardwood floors.

We needed to get our children back into Sunday school so we started attending the same Nazarene church again. Soon Archie and I were reclaimed, for we were both out of victory and had backslid. Brother Bill Johnson was our pastor and he seemed to take a special interest in us. I cleaned up my life as best I could by throwing out the "True Love Story" magazines and the lipsticks, and I made up my mind I was really going to be a Christian. I so much wanted a Christian home and to be a Christian mother for my children.

Opal and three children ready for Church, Chandler, 1952 (above).

My Sunday school teacher was Belva Jones. She was a very spiritual and lovely person and seemed to have a special interest in me. She would call me on the phone two or three times a week just to visit. She sensed that I was a hungry-hearted soul and needed to be sanctified. At that time the Church had a lot of God and Glory upon it. The ministry faithfully proclaimed full salvation and sanctification as a second work of Grace. Although I didn't understand the teaching I knew these people had something that I needed and wanted so I began to pray about it. The devil began to tell me that because I had backslid so many times that the Lord would never sanctify me, and I might have believed his lie except that one night around midnight as I was praying the Lord gave me a vision of myself at prayer and the Glory seemed to be streaming down upon me.

I didn't fully understand but I felt in my spirit that maybe there was hope for even me, so I began to seek the Lord in earnest in prayer and searching of the Word. I learned that if "I would seek Him with all of my heart he would be found of me" and that "No good thing would be withheld from them who walk uprightly." Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of a restitution that I had refused to make five years ago when I had been reclaimed and had sought Him. At that time He had told me "No" so plainly that I knew what He meant and it was because of the unmade restitution. I knew this, yet I refused to make it. Now the unmade restitution surfaced again. I knew in my spirit if I was to ever find sanctifying Grace I must make it. So I humbled myself and went to the one I had wronged eleven years before and asked for forgiveness. What a load was lifted and what freedom in prayer I found!

I decided to add fasting to my prayer--one meal a day for a week. By the end of the week I was so spiritually hungry and thirsty that I knew I couldn't go on like that. Saturday evening at bedtime (Archie was working late) I was just sitting in my rocker thinking about giving up. I had prayed and fasted for a week and made the restitution and still the Lord had not come and done a work in my heart. I decided to tell the Lord that if He didn't intend to sanctify me to just please lift this spirit of heaviness off of me because I couldn't go on like this. So I got on my knees beside my bed and I said, "Lord, if you don't intend to sanctify me--" and just then He came. The room seemed to fill with His divine presence and He showed me myself, Opal Pounds, kneeling at the altar of the Nazarene Church and the glory was streaming down from heaven upon my head. He had come again to encourage my faith and this time so real and wonderful to tell me He was going to do it. I didn't know when but I knew He was going to sanctify me. The next morning, Sunday, I got us ready for Sunday school. Archie decided not to go. I didn't know for sure that this would be the time but as I came inside the Church I felt His presence. I knew He was already there. Brother Johnson knew also for the Lord had changed his message the night before as he prepared for the service. One of the opening songs chosen was "The Power They Had at Pentecost." After Sunday school Brother Johnson requested the same song again. The power, the power, the power they had at Pentecost gives victory over sin and purity within, the power they had at Pentecost." My heart was so heavy and so hungry I couldn't sing but I knew it was for me. Brother Johnson took his text from Luke 11:13: "If ye being evil know how to give good things to your children how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that love him?" After a short sermon, he opened the altar for seekers. I was the first one there. I remember I was praying, "Lord, I don't care what anyone thinks about me. I don't care what my husband thinks, I don't care what my Mother thinks"--I had never prayed these words before--when the Lord whom I sought suddenly came to His temple (Mal. 3:11). The spirit came to me as a cleansing, purifying stream of glory fire falling upon my head, coming in through my ears and cleansing, purifying throughout my whole body, burning up the chaff in my life, gathering the good, cleansed by His fire, into His storehouse, washing away every doubt from my life, satisfying the deepest longing of my soul. Truly "John baptized with water but Jesus baptizes with the Holy Ghost." Unspeakable--no words to explain it. I can only say, "Thank you, Jesus." He had come to live in my life, and I would never be the same. The old was gone. The new had come.

At the time I was sanctified, I was thirty-two years old. It was March 23, 1952. God had made my life beautiful. Jesus by His spirit became so real to me, I only wanted to love Him and sense Him and bring my little family up to know and love Him too.

The Bill Johnson family became our dear friends as well as pastors. The old Nazarene Church had the Glory and wonderful people. I loved Her dearly. But there was an undercurrent of discontent amongst the people that I never sensed until the pastor moved on. But before he moved on, the Church had a wonderful revival. At the same time there was a contention brewing about the wearing of gold, of which Paul the apostle had something to say. I was a new Christian walking in the light as it was given to me. I was still wearing my wedding ring (having worn out my engagement ring and my class ring). Brother Johnson never mentioned anything about jewelry, nor television nor anything about standards as I remember. But during the revival Archie, along with others, was at the altar seeking God. The Spirit of God settled down around that altar. It seemed to me that the glory of His Presence was knee deep around that altar but Archie wasn't getting through. I began to search my heart--was I not walking in obedience? Then I remembered how the Spirit had been dealing with me about my gold ring. I said, "Alright Lord," and I took it off and laid it on the altar. Immediately the Spirit fell upon Archie and he was blessed and reclaimed.

About a year afterwards, the Johnsons moved on and a new pastor came. He was more liberal in his thinking. He didn't care much for the old standards of our church. He thought the ladies should wear make-up and bobbed hair if they liked to, and he wanted to build a kitchen-dining area in the basement. He was for television and for all the things the old church had been against for all the past years. Finally when he twisted a certain scripture that had been foundational to the church, some of his people began to leave and to have prayer meetings in their homes rather than in church. We also came out. It was a sad day for everyone but we felt we wanted to keep the glory in our midst no matter what the cost.

This was the beginning of the Bible Missionary Church. The Chandler group was among the first to come out of the Nazarenes. Soon they would be doing the same all over the country. When Brother Elbert Dodd came out and others of his caliber and faith, the Bible Missionary Church really took off. Archie and I helped to build the BMC church in Chandler, supporting it with tithes and offerings until we moved to Duncan, but that's a later chapter. Our lives would take another turn for a while.

In the summer of 1952 Bessie and Earl came back to Oklahoma for a visit. They had been living in northern California for five or six years. During that time they had bought a home in Upper Lake and a dairy and were running a wholesale milk business--hauling raw milk to Ukiah and bringing back cartoned milk and milk products which they wholesaled to grocery stores around the area. They needed help with the business and also needed an inflow of cash. Bessie and Archie had always been close and Bessie knew he wasn't afraid of work. She probably thought he had a little money too, which of course we didn't, but we did own our house on First Street.

She persuaded Archie to move to California and buy into the milk business with them. So soon we loaded up all our earthly possessions on a trailer, hitched it to the back of our car, and headed for Kelseyville, California. I think I must have cried all the way to Oklahoma City. Chandler was my home, my folks were there, my church, my roots. Finally it was time to dry my tears, accept the challenge, and make the most of it. After all, this was my own little family, my wonderful husband, and the Lord was going with us. A new adventure awaited us all.

Bessie had rented a nice house for us in the country south of Kelseyville. It was a lovely location beside a clear stream called Kelsey Creek, with huge oak trees. The house was modern and down the driveway a ways the school bus ran past it. There was also a large walk-in refrigerated room on the back porch for all the milk products. It was mountainous with warm days and cool nights. Kelsey Creek was damned up above the house in the summer, making a natural swimming hole for the family to enjoy. The water was so cold I didn't much enjoy swimming there but the kids loved it and all three learned to swim.

After we got settled in our new place the first thing we did was start looking for a home church. Melvin and his family lived in the town of Kelseyville, and his daughter Devorah had been going to a large Methodist church there. We never went to that church but decided to try out the Assembly of God, since there was no Nazarene church close by. The people were very friendly and welcomed us. We especially loved their young pastor, Brother Miller. They took us in and even gave me a Sunday school class to teach, though knowing we were not of their persuasion. God's people are basically alike everywhere even though their doctrines may be a little different. We learned to love and appreciate the people there and ever since the Assembly of God people have had a special place in our hearts.

The second summer at Kelseyville the Assembly of God built an outdoor tabernacle and hired an evangelist for an old-fashioned out-door revival. I had been under a heavy burden for the revival, not really understanding why the Lord was so heavy, but during that revival, under that old branch-covered brush arbor, our son A.M. was converted, so then I understood the special burden. To this day he too has a special love for the Assembly of God people. That first year in California, Melvin and Hazel and also Devorah were converted. They began to attend church with us and the three of them and Archie formed a quartet and began to sing together at church and at home. Devorah could play the piano and sing too. They sang at church and were a great blessing. We had so many good times the three years we were there with family and friends and the church.

As soon as we arrived at Kelseyville Archie started on the milk routes. He would get up at 2:30 a.m. and get in the old freight truck and travel around the countryside picking up ten-gallon cans of raw milk from the dairies. He had to load them double-deck high and even outside on the running boards, then drive across the mountain to Ukiah, unload the cans, and reload the truck with cases of milk products. He then brought the products home, reloaded them into a pickup truck, and delivered them to the stores and resorts all around the Lake. It was a hard, heavy job. In the summers A.M. helped him on the delivery pickup. After several months of this they did hire help to drive the freight truck. One steady driver was Joe Shefcick, the husband of Bessie and Earl's daughter Ladon.

Kelseyville is in Lake County, and around there and Lakeport were many pear and walnut orchards, also prunes. In the fall the children and I would go into the walnut orchards and pick up walnuts. The shaker would shake them down and they were easy to pick up. We would make several hundred dollars extra in that way, which we used each fall to make a trip home to Oklahoma.

California was never really home to us although we enjoyed living close to Archie's family, and we loved the weather and the beautiful country. After three years we began to feel like it was time to go home. Our children were growing up. A.M. was about to start his first year of high school, Geraldine was a young lady, and Wayne was ten. We were afraid if we stayed too long they would grow up and marry out there and then we would probably never leave either. At that time we didn't want that for our children. So we sold our half of the milk company to Bessie and Earl's oldest son Verdon, who was getting married about that time. We stayed until after the wedding and then we bought a truck, loaded up all our earthly possessions again, and headed home to Chandler. Since we couldn't get home until after school started, we decided to send A.M. home to live with his Aunt Sarah so he could be there when school started.

I've often thought how foolish that was of us. He was only fourteen. So many things could have happened on that long three-day trip, but thank God nothing very serious did. He was always mature for his age, and since he was a Christian we trusted him completely, but I'm sure he has unpleasant memories about that bus trip home.

We were home but without a job. Archie bought a filling station on 66 Highway, then sold it and bought another on Manvel Avenue (Main Street) across from the Phillips 66 station. It was a Sinclair station and didn't do so well. He sold that, and being at loose ends that fall we decided to go out to California and work in the pears. A man for whom Archie had worked in the harvest the last year we were in California (after we had sold the milk company) had contacted him and offered him a job overseeing his orchards. So we packed the car and headed west again but we felt a little uneasy about that trip, wondering if we were doing the right thing. That first night out as the rest of us slept Archie was still driving away into the night. He was praying and asking God if he was doing the right thing. The Lord had answered prayer, helped us sell the milk company, and brought us home, and we didn't know what awaited us in California. Archie prayed and put out a fleece. He told the Lord if this was not the right thing for us to do at this time to let something go wrong with the car. About morning the radiator began to get hot, so at the first station we stopped and found we needed a new radiator hose. He said, "Thank you, Lord," and we got the hose fixed, turned around, and headed back to Chandler. Glad to get home and find that our church had also been praying for us.

We still had no job so we decided to borrow Uncle Hank Pounds's tent and go to Lake Car Blackwell fishing. While there Ira Howser (Sarah's husband) came looking for Archie to tell him that Boggs's store needed a butcher for awhile. So we went home and he worked as a butcher for a short time. After that he worked for Earl Renner at the Phillips station for a few weeks. While there Elvin Goodman's dad came and told him that the Safeway store needed a butcher. He got the job and worked there for several years until Safeway closed out and moved away.

In the meantime I had been working as an alterationist, first for Carl Bolen's cleaning shop and later for Hellman's Department Store. We had also bought our own home. It was a small house on North Oak Street. We added kitchen cabinets and a bathroom. It was a small acreage. Nothing fancy but it was home.

During the three or four years we lived there, A.M. graduated from high school. At eighteen all the young men had to have a stint of army training, so he joined the National Guard and had to have six months of training. He was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Missouri, and then to New Jersey. It was a great day for all of us when the training was over and he was home again. He had decided he wanted to be an accountant, so we helped him get started at Hills Business School in Oklahoma City. He had bought his own car while still in high school--a very ambitious and independent young man. He was reaching out for independence when he went to Stroud and asked his Grandpa Earp to sign his note for his first car. Grandpa did, and was paid back in full.

About this time Lynnie McClure came to Chandler to visit Una Herd, a sister of my mentor Belva Jones. Lynnie was from Odessa, Texas. She was from our own church background and was a very sweet Christian girl. A.M. fell in love with her and she with him. There was never anyone else for either of them. He was nineteen and she was twenty-one.

In the meantime Clyde Barrett, whom Archie worked with in the meat department at Safeway, had bought a small farm of 128 acres about four miles northeast of town near the Chandler Airport. We traded our house on North Oak Street for his farm. We bought some nice whiteface cattle, some chickens, and a milk cow or two, and moved to the country. I had a wonderful garden and strawberry patch. The house was an older house but Clyde had made it modern. I loved it there and never planned to move again, but it didn't work out that way. The second winter we were there we were inundated with a severe ice storm such as only Oklahoma can have. The next morning neither the pickup nor the car would start. Archie finally had to call Ira Howser to come out and help him with jumper cables to get the pickup started. He was so disgusted that he was late to work (and you just weren't late to work for Safeway) he said, "Next winter will not find me out here." And it didn't. We sold the farm the next summer. So much for not moving again.

Geraldine graduated high school our last year on the farm. She was a very sweet and of course we thought beautiful young lady. She was a straight-A student and loved school and music. We had given her piano lessons she she was twelve and she had become a very accomplished pianist. A.M. had taken up the trombone in high school band, and Wayne played the cornet. Our children were all musically inclined. I take no credit for that. It came from the Pounds side of the family. We were so proud of their talent in music. We parents enjoyed it when they played in church together.

A.M. played the trombone for many years after high school days. Gerry has continued to play the piano since she became a Christian in her high school days. I know it wasn't easy in high school but she did have some sweet Christian friends from the Baptist and Friends churches. She had always talked of going to Bible college, thinking she might have a call to the missions, but by the time high school was over she was also wanting to go Oklahoma State University or to a business school such as Draughn's in Oklahoma City.

I'm afraid I over-persuaded her to go to Bible school. I wanted her to find out God's will for her life and also I wanted her to find a Christian young man for a husband. In our church, except at camp meeting for two weeks in the summer, there just weren't any young men that I felt were suitable for my daughter, so she didn't date very much. I don't think she has really forgiven me for that. Of course I dated her Daddy when I was a senior in high school but we were neither one Christian at that time. Neither were my parents. So she went off to the Bible Missionary Institute in Rock Island, Illinois, where according to her she studied music, theology, and the opposite sex.

During our life on the farm northwest of town we had the first wedding in our family. A.M. and Lynnie married April 28, 1961. We went to Odessa, Texas, for the grand affair. It was a very sweet and precious service performed in the Bible Missionary Church by Lynnie's grandfather. Her sister was her maid of honor. A.M. had not become a CPA but he had enough knowledge to get a job and hold it. He promised his Daddy that he would finish his education after marriage, but that didn't happen until several years later.

After we sold the farm we bought a little house with a basement under it across the street from the Nazarene church in Chandler. It was located at 801 Iowa Street. We would live there for seven or eight years. Wayne would graduate high from school while we were there.

Wayne was an exceptionally bright and promising young man. He had two very close buddies, Joe Sam Vassar and Arthur Goble, his cousin. He was in debate and he and Joe won honors there. I always thought he could have been valedictorian of his graduating class but instead of studying for classes he preferred to read all the books in the library. He did excel among the highest in the nation on his A.C.T. test when he was a senior and was awarded a scholarship to the College of the Ozarks in Arkansas for four years. We were very proud.

The College of the Ozarks was a Presbyterian school, and I had hoped for a good influence for his faith. He did well scholastically but after two years he quit and moved to Durant to a state college. He had no scholarship there and not much help from home for we had Gerry in Bible school, so he had to work at anything he could find to do and ended up driving a school bus for two years. I know it wasn't easy. Nevertheless he graduated at the top of his class and had his choice among several scholarships for the next four years. Proud? Yes, very! He chose to go to graduate school at the University of Kansas.

Back to Geraldine--she had been two years to Bible school, and the second summer had stayed out of school, living off campus with a girlfriend and working. In the fall of 1964 she returned to school. That fall a handsome young man named Sammy Robideaux from Louisiana came to Bible school. Gerry fell in love with her Louisiana man and he with her. So she was soon writing home all about him and the next thing we knew she was engaged and coming home for her wedding. Well, isn't that what you expect your daughter to do. Of course, we'd never heard of the Robideaux family. But we knew Brother Elbert Dodd would know them as he had been in that state a long time as General Moderator of the Church. Archie got Brother Dodd on the phone and asked about the Robideauxs. Yes, we did get a good reports--"No better family anywhere." So by the first of February she had quit school and was coming home to plan her wedding.

Gerry had always said she wanted a wedding and wanted to wear a white dress as she had earned the right to wear white. The church gave her a lovely shower. Brother E. B. Meek was our pastor and his daughters and Caroline Herd gave her a lovely shower. We borrowed a dress from Mother's neighbor's daughter. It was calf-length but we bought lace and made it ankle-length and bought the head piece and made the veil. She had a lovely wedding with cake and all the trimmings at the reception afterward. Two of her friends came from Rock Island to be bridesmaids, and Sammy's pastor Brother A. J. Hoof came up from Louisiana with all his family. LaGaye, who was about three, was the flower girl. Gerry was a beautiful and happy bride and the wedding was lovely. Anne Baldwin sang at the wedding, "Your People Shall Be My People" and "Whither Thou Goest I Will Go."

But before all this, even before we left the farm by the airport we were becoming grandparents. A.M. and Lynnie presented us with a beautiful baby girl, Cheri LeGay Pounds, August 19th, 1962. Two years later, on February 23, 1964, Ludith Lynn was born. She seemed so tiny I was almost afraid to hold her. But she had a big world to grow in, and we had two beautiful granddaughters. We were doubly proud. By the time Judith was born we had moved into town to 801 Iowa.

On August 2, 1966, Krista Arnette Robideaux came into our lives. I made my first bus trip alone to Lake Charles, Louisiana, to take care of her and her mother. I have to admit I was scared to change buses once but I made it there and back just fine. A girl needs her mother at such an important time. We were now the proud grandparents of three little girls.

About this time the Vietnam war was heating up between the North and South Vietnamese people. When the North Vietnamese sank one of our ships America jumped headlong into the war. Here at home it was a very unpopular war. There was rioting in the colleges and resistance everywhere. When the college young men began to be drafted many of them fled to Canada. Of course we began to worry about Wayne knowing that in time he would have to go. We were proud that he didn't run off to Canada as many did. Instead of waiting to be drafted he volunteered, thinking perhaps to get into officer training school, but he soon found out that wasn't what he wanted. He just wanted to do his part and get it behind him. The closer the time got for him to go overseas the heavier my burden grew for him, as many young men were being killed.

At this time I was working in the school lunch room. We had to be there by 6:30 a.m. to start the bread. I tried to always get up early to pray before my work day started. One morning, a few weeks before he was sent overseas, as I was on my way to work, the Holy Spirit spoke to me. He said, "Is there any reason why you cannot trust me?" Instantly I knew it was my Lord speaking, although I had never heard Him in this way before. Instantly I searched my heart and I answered, "No, Lord, there is no reason why I cannot trust you." I was thrilled and yet so humbled to think that God had been hearing my prayers, seeing my anguish, and only wanted me to trust Him. My heavy load lifted and I went to work so excited to tell the other ladies that the God of Heaven had spoken to me. I don't know if they ever really believed me but I have never doubted it--not then nor since.

From that day on, when I would think of Wayne over there in the war I would just praise Him for taking care of him. On his last furlough home before he was to be sent overseas, we took him to Oklahoma City to catch his plane back to base camp. We watched his plane until it was out of sight but we had such comfort because we knew he was in God's hands and he would be coming home again. We didn't know but what he might come home wounded but we knew he was coming home. Only he knows what his experiences were over there, for he did see action but he never talked about it much, but dear reader let me tell you how the Lord worked for him. When President Nixon began his first troop withdrawals in 1969, Wayne's unit was pulled out and sent to Hawaii. He was put to work in the personnel office of the Army hospital in Honolulu until the end of the war. He didn't have to live on the base now but had an apartment with a buddy. He bought a yellow motorbike which he called the "yellow bomber" and rode it to work and back, and on weekends took in the sights of beautiful Hawaii.

About this time the Chandler Safeway store closed down and Archie was out of work again. So in 1965 he went to work for Hellman's Department Store in the men's department. He enjoyed the work, for he always loved sales and people. Victor Hellman, his boss, told him his sales were better than anyone's who had ever worked for him but after about a year the dust from the dry goods was affecting his allergies and sinuses and he was looking around for something else to do.

Dean Stuart had opened up an Oldsmobile dealership on the north side of town and he hired Archie to work for him. Archie loved selling automobiles and was soon made general manager of the business. He loved his job and had finally found his profession in life. It was car (and later truck) sales. A.M. and his family had moved to Duncan when the children were small and he was working as an accountant for an oilfield supplies company which also owned an agency that sold trucks and built vacuum units for oilfield use. He had been trying to get his Daddy to move to Duncan and go to work for his company. After a few years with Dean Stuart Archie was ready to move on. He loved the challenge.

Though life was moving on for us and our children, it was drawing to a close for our parents. Archie's Dad was the first to go. He had been having some emphysema and heart problems for some time and not been at all well. On Sunday morning, June 19, 1966, he was carried home by an angel band. I had stopped by on that Sunday morning to pick up Mom Pounds for Sunday school and found that he wasn't able to get up. Sarah was there and she was peeling an orange for him. All of a sudden he just stiffened and died. His heart had quit.

About that time Archie came in as he was bringing his Dad a Father's Day gift. He was the only one of us who saw the angels that Sunday morning. He said the air and the room was so full of angels he could hardly breathe. He says they made him understand that the body being carried out was not his Daddy but they were taking his spirit back to Heaven with them. Some of them must have tarried because Bessie said she was aware that one walked with her in the cemetery the day we buried him. Archie and his Dad had always been very close to one another. His heart was so comforted by the angel visit that he has never wept at the death of his father. He knows he is in heaven waiting for him there. Dad Pounds was 75 years old.

The next one we lost was my Mother. Born in 1896 in the Cherokee Outlet of Oklahoma Territory, she too was 75 years old when she died. She had an aneurism. When she finally consulted her doctor about it he sent her immediately to Oklahoma City to a surgeon. Dad and I took her. She sat in the back seat and sang hymns nearly all of the way to the City. The doctor operated the next day. Somehow her blood vessels did not hold after the surgery and she died the following Sunday, May 23, 1971. I never knew it could hurt so bad to lose someone you love until I lost my Mother. She was a great lady and always someone I could talk to and I always knew she loved me. Someday I shall see her again. Heaven will be sweeter because she will be there.

My Dad lived four more years after he lost Mom. They were lonely years for him, for like most men he depended on his wife for most of his needs and especially for fellowship. We moved him into our little rent house on the west side of us but he was never happy there. He finally sold everything and went into a nursing home at Stroud. He wasn't happy there either. He wrote to my sister Dena and urged her and Ted to move back to Chandler, as we had gone to Duncan by then, so he could come to live with them. They did and he moved in with them, but somehow that didn't work out either, so he went back to the nursing home. They finally moved him to the Chandler nursing home, where he died September 15, 1975, and we buried him beside mother in the Stroud Cemetery. That too had been Oklahoma Territory when he was born north of Stroud in 1893. I hope to meet him too in a happier world someday.

In between Mother's death and Dad's, on February 21, 1974, we lost our oldest brother Kenneth. He and Laura had moved to Dallas when they left Chandler. He had a good job as an accountant for an airways company. There they had two children, Susan and Kenny. They should have been happy for they loved and wanted children, but Kenneth developed a drinking problem which made for a lot of unhappiness through the years for his family. He also died from an aneurism. I was privileged to go to his funeral. My cousin Claudia Kay Earp picked up her Dad, Claud, and my Dad and came by Duncan and picked me up. I shall always be grateful for Claudia Kay for doing that. Kenneth was fifty-nine years old.

After my Dad moved into the Stroud nursing home, we moved Mom Pounds into our little rent house to the west of us. Dr. Smith had told her she needed to be in a warmer house as she was having some bronchial problems and her old house on West Fifth Street was always hard to keep warm in the winter months.

About this time Dena and Ted moved back to Chandler. They had been living in New Mexico and Colorado all of their married life. It was so good to have my sister close on the same block. We had never lived in close contact since her marriage, but now we were together again, though it wasn't to be for very long.

A.M. kept encouraging Archie to look into the job in Duncan, so he did and was hired. By that time, about 1970 or 1971, he was working for Carlos Taylor at the Ford Motor Company on Main Street. He had quit Dean Stuart because Dean expected him to do and approve some shady deals. Archie never could tolerate crookedness. He was always honest and upright in all of his dealings, and people knew that. That's why he had lots of customers in the car business. We hated to leave his mother, but his sister Sarah was still living in Chandler then. Her husband Ira had died and she had married again. I was sorry to leave Dena after she had just moved back to Chandler and also hated to leave my church and my home town, but as the song saith, "Whither Thou Goest I Will Go." So we packed up and moved to Duncan.

We knew Duncan was a good town and the church there was one of the largest. Also, the District campgrounds was there. We bought a nice little house on a corner lot on Willow Street, where we would live for about ten years. Dena and Ted bought a house just a half block south of our house in Chandler, where they would live for the next twenty-eight years. We loved Duncan and Archie loved his job. He was making good money and that made him happy. We were there to enjoy our granddaughters, LeGaye and Judith, and their growing-up- years until they both married and moved away.

Gerry and Sammy had presented us with our only grandson. They named him Heath Lane. They were living in Duncan when he was born, before we moved there. I was privileged to go to Duncan and take care of him and Gerry when they came home from the hospital. He was born December 10, 1968. He was always a beautiful baby (as to my grandmother's eye all my grand-babies were). We were so proud of that little boy, and still are.

After Wayne got out of the Army, he went back to graduate school at the University of Kansas, working towards a doctorate in American literature. He now had his G.I.-Bill money along with his fellowship to pay his way, so he wasn't in any hurry to leave school. It was easy living, he said, and he liked it.

When he finally did graduate with his Ph.D. in 1976, jobs were hard to find in the U.S., so because he wanted to travel abroad and have the chance to speak French he took a job in Algeria. That didn't work out well, so after about six months he moved to Madrid, Spain, and taught there for about six months, then he came back to the University of Kansas to work part-time and start a new job search. One of his teachers had taught in Japan and encouraged him to go there. He did and was hired at a college in Osaka, Japan. I'm sure his first years were lonely years but after a time he met a young lady named Hisako Hori, who later became our second daughter-in-law. He married her February 11, 1980, and then brought her home to meet the family. We all liked her from the start and were happy he had someone to share his life with and make him happy.

After a few years, they moved back to the States and he taught first in Austin, Texas, for a year then moved to San Luis Obispo, California, where he taught for three years. Then they went back to Japan, this time to Tokyo, where he got a job in the English Department of Aoyama Gakuin University and has been ever since. I'm sure he must be a fine teacher because in 1999 he was given tenure, meaning he could teach for the rest of his career at his university. We are proud of his accomplishments. It's hard to have him living so far away but we want him to be happy.

On December 31, 1975, we lost the last of our parents. Mom Pounds died with a heart attack. She was a great lady and we miss her here but one day we will be meeting her again. We'll sit down on the banks of the river and catch her up on all the things she missed out on here on earth and she will tell us all about the glories of Heaven. She has rejoined the one she loved so well on earth.

The years we spent in Duncan were good years and productive in many ways. We had managed to buy and pay for four rent houses--one at a time--besides the house we lived in. It was a good time for rental property in Duncan, for the oil drilling was plentiful and there were lots of jobs. After six years with his company, Archie was forced to retire because of health problems. His back problem was getting worse. He had always worked hard since he was a boy growing up on the farm. Until he went into auto sales, he had farmed (not an easy job), worked in grocery stores, driven a gasoline truck, a milk truck, been a butcher for Safeway, and clerked in a department store. We had always hoped he might retire at sixty but never thought we could afford it. Archie loved his job and wasn't ready to retire, but when the doctor said, "you could wind up in a wheel chair," it was time to get serious about retiring.

We had the rental houses and knew they would give us plenty to do to keep us busy and they did. We also had time for some good years of RV-ing. We bought a nice trailer and pickup, also a nice boat. We had some good friends in the church who also retired about the same time. We would join together with them and head for Lake Texoma, a lovely lake at the corner of the state. Leonard Allen was an avid fisherman and would stay camped out about all of the summer after Camp Meeting in June. Bill and Betty Covington would come and go, as Bill was farming some and had cattle to see to. We didn't usually stay over a week at a time as Archie's back couldn't handle the steep bank getting down to the water and the boat. Those were great enjoyable times.

In the winter, for several years we would pull the trailer to Death Valley to be with Archie's sister Bessie and brother-in-law Earl Strong, who kept a trailer there year round. It was a fun place and many seniors spent their winter there. Bessie and Earl were always a lot of fun and we played games, walked in the sun, climbed the mountain close by, rock hunted, took hot baths (which were free), ate at the Recreation Hall a lot, and roamed around of the country. It was and is a very unique place. It looks like Trailer City during the winter months. It is always nice and warm all winter, and the sun shines nearly every day. The last winter that we spent out there Earl was so crotchety with Bessie that we went home early and determined not to go back the next winter, but we've always wished we had gone. Bessie had called and wanted us to come so badly. After we wondered if she had had a premonition that it was going to be her last winter there. Anyway, we remembered how ugly Earl had been to her the winter before that, and we decided not to go. That winter she had a bad heart attack and was rushed to Las Vegan by helicopter but she did not make it. Bessie was a wonderful person. She was always so much fun and had a good positive attitude all the time. She was a Christian and a member of the Adventist Church at Upper Lake. She has been missed here on earth but she is just one more reason to look forward to Heaven.

It was a great time to be living in Duncan. We had a great church and a good pastor. It was so good to watch our grandchildren grow up, graduate, and go away to school. LeGaye went to Rock Island and took nursing training. She became an R.N. in three years but during those years she met a young man at Bible school studying for the ministry, Charles Young. They fell in love as young people do and were married January 5, 1985, in the Bible Missionary Church. He accepted his first pastorate soon afterwards. About a year later our first great grandson, John Wesley Young, was born. That made us both proud great-grandparents. About three years later Adam Christopher was born, and a year later Anna Joy made the family complete.

Next Judith went off to Bible school and there she met a young man from Louisiana who could sing like a mockingbird. They were married in the old Duncan church, January 5, 1985. This union has given us two more great grandsons, Justin Scott, born April 27, 1990, and Jason Kirk, born May 1, 1993.

About this time our only grandson Heath Robideaux took a wife. On April 19, 1990, he married Michel Minor. To this union Brent Lane was born September 3, 1992. Now we had five great-grandsons. Then Heidi Ann came along July 11, 1995. Soon after this Krista was married to Alan Wiltz. On October 8, 1998, Jill Wiltz was born to Krista and Allen. That made us four grandchildren, three girls and one boy, and eight great-grandchildren, five boys and three girls. We felt very blessed.

About the year 1990 I began to get an itch to go home to Chandler. We had sold the rental property and it had been good to us. The RV-ing was about over. Archie's back was such that we didn't go to the lake or fishing much anymore. And we had been retired about ten years.

Around 1988 the dear old Duncan church began to have some problems, and soon there was a split in the congregation, and most of the younger people and a few of the older ones resigned. They started their own church. This was very serious and especially hard for us to accept. Our son and all of his family had left. We got caught up in the rift for a time, and it never seemed the same to again to us. That's when I began to want to move back to Chandler. I finally half persuaded Archie, and we began to look for a house in Chandler. We found one that suited us on 210 South Oak. They were in the process of redecorating it and the price was right. We soon sold the house in Duncan, had a sale, and with the help of our kids we were moving again. Gerry and Sammy came up from Louisiana to help. Judith and John and A.M. and Lynnie also helped. We made quite a caravan traveling up the highway behind the moving van--four cars, a travel trailer and pickup, and a pickup and boat, but after nearly twenty years we were going home.

My sister Dena still lived in Chandler. She had recently had to place her husband Ted in a veterans' home. He had the dread Alzheimer's disease and it reached the point where she couldn't take care of him anymore. We lived in Chandler ten years, and for me, these were good years. I especially enjoyed living close to Dena. We played a lot of skip-bo and went to church together on Sunday morning. She went to the senior citizens' center often and we joined her now and then. We had other family and friends there whom it was good to see again.

We sold the RV and boat the second year in Chandler. Archie's health gradually deteriorated and we didn't feel safe in them anymore. I had a small strawberry patch and garden in my backyard, which I enjoyed, and Dena and I made garden at her place every spring. Earl Strong had married again after Bessie died and they were living in Davenport, about six miles east of Chandler. We loved his new wife Lena and visited with them a lot.

After Earl married and moved in with Lena, my brother Wendel rented Earl's house in Davenport. We had not lived close to him since we were all kids at home so we tried to see him often and played a lot of skip-bo together. His wife Lavonne had died and he had sold his home in Kansas and was retired into the trailering life. But he wrecked his trailer before coming to Davenport. He was also fighting the awful disease of emphysema. He was on oxygen all the time by then. Still, I am thankful we were given those few years together. He finally couldn't make it on his own so his daughter Rhonda and her husband Bill moved him to Oklahoma City close to them. He stayed there until he died last year (2002) in a nursing home. He was a veteran of World War II and was given a lovely military funeral. I was very proud and sorrowful at the same time.

Archie and Opal, 60th Wedding Anniversary, 1999 (above).

We also lost our brother Ernest while we were living at Chandler. He too had Alzheimer's disease and was in the same veterans' home at Sulphur as Ted. After about two years there he died of a heart attack. Ernest was many things. First of all he was a great guy and a wonderful brother. I loved him dearly. He was a soldier in World War II, fighting in Germany and Europe. He was wounded as was Wendel. After the war was over he went to college and became a teacher and school administrator. He was a Church of God minister. Also he was the father of two girls, Elaine and Ernestine, who live in Oklahoma City where their mother Christine lives.

Sarah, Archie's sister, lost her husband Ira when their son Daryl was about fifteen. Ira had gone to the Chandler Lake duck hunting and died of a heart attack in a duck blind that he had built. She later married Buck Godwin. It was a marriage that was not meant to be as Buck as never the kind of man she thought he would be. They were divorced after a few years and she later moved to Lake County, California, close to Bessie's and Melvin's families. While there she married Al Huth. He was a good man and they had a good marriage and moved back to Chandler. There after a few years he became seriously ill and later died in a veteran's home in Oklahoma City. Then Sarah's health began to fail and her son and his wife sold her home and moved her to Meeker to be close to them. Daryl is a state game ranger and has been for several years. Sarah's health continued to fail and she passed away in 2002. Daryl and his wife Cheri have two fine sons, Jerrod and Tyler. By now, in this year of 2004, they are teenagers and in college. Sarah was always so proud of them as she had every right to be.

Now, as I write this today, it is February of 2004. Archie is eighty-five and I am eighty-three. In the year 2000 our son A.M. began to suggest that we move to Tulsa to be closer to him. It wasn't an easy decision to make, for Chandler was home to us. But we didn't have much of an argument to make as we were reaching the age that brings many problems and illnesses and knew that we were going to be needing help that neighbors and friends don't usually provide. We had Dena nearby but she also was into her eighties. Besides A.M. and Lynnie, we would also have our two sweet granddaughters LeGaye and Judith and their families to give us support if we should need it.

When we moved back to Chandler from Duncan I never meant to move again. Archie and I have moved many times during our sixty-four years of marriage. We went to Tulsa to see A.M. and Lynnie and they took us house-hunting mostly around Jenks and Glenpool, the area where they lived. We decided on a house in Glenpool. It was much in need of cleaning up, needing new carpet and painting and general cleanup. Out pastor, Brother Grimmion did the painting and our wonderful children and grandchildren helped clean it up. After putting down new carpet it was very nice and we moved in.

We have a pretty neighborhood and the Nazarene Church is just a few blocks away. At first Judith and John and their boys lived a few blocks from us but they had been looking for a place in the country for some time, so they moved away but not too far. They have their dream home in the country, and we are glad for them. LeGaye and Charles live close to Jenks so we see them fairly often. Their three children are about to grow up. Wesley has spent a year in the army but is back in college. Adam graduated from high school last year, and Anna is a senior this year.

Gerry and Sammy have lived in Louisiana most of their married life, first in Crowley and now in Natchitoches. Their children, Krista and Heath are both married and have children of their own. Krista has one girl, Jill, and Heath and Michelle have a boy and a girl, Brent and Heidi.

Wayne and Hisako, as I said, moved back to Japan. Maybe the grass looked greener over there. Anyway he was offered a job at a prestigious university and they were on their way back. Sorry to say things didn't go well for their marriage. I wonder if it because Hisako's parents moved in with them. In Japan there is no social security as there is here and children are expected to care for elderly parents. Hisako may have been overly burdened, as she worked full time outside. Her father and mother both had problems. I don't really know but one day Wayne packed up his things and moved out, and there was a divorce. He also wanted children, but she said her work was more important to her than raising kids, even adopted ones. With the divorce, she got all the material things and he got peace and freedom. We didn't know her very well but the breakup of a marriage is always sad, at least at first.

After about a year he met a young lady named Nana, and they married. That same year he brought her home to meet us. She is a very sweet and kind person with a brilliant smile. We gave them a belated wedding shower and everyone was happy. And, surprise of all surprises, we learned soon afterwards that she wanted a family. Now Wayne was fifty-seven years old and had never had a child of his own. Yes, you guessed it. On September 15, 2003, Shelley Pounds was born--six and a half pounds of beautiful and healthy little girl. We rejoice with them and are looking forward to meeting her very soon.

Things were going very well for us in Glenpool. We had settled in and were enjoying our new home and found a wonderful small Nazarene church with such kind and good people. And then the unthinkable happened--Archie had a bad fall. Our dining area lightbulb went out, and he decided to change it. Nothing I could say would stop him. He climbed upon a chair and reached for the light, got over balanced, and fell to the floor. I thought he had probably broken some ribs but it was much worse. It was Wednesday evening that he fell. The next day we went for x-rays. Saturday, December 14th, he couldn't get up so we called the ambulance and he was hospitalized for four days. He was told he had chipped a vertebra and ruptured and broken two more. So we were back and forth from the emergency room and the hospital. Then on February 4th he had a heart attack. He was lying on the divan after lunch and he said, "My arms are hurting so bad. Call the ambulance. I'm having a heart attack." I did, and we barely got him to the hospital in time. The paramedic was beating him in the chest and yelling for help when we drove up to the hospital. They took him immediately to surgery and put a stent in his heart. Later that week they released him to the nursing home. He was there for three weeks and we brought him home. I soon had to take him back.

I was in and out of the nursing home for a time. Then during this period I had a heart attack. It was not as serious as his. I was put on a diet and medication. Archie's mind was affected by his attack so we brought him home. He was falling out of bed, climbing over the rail of his bed and hitting his head on the floor, and having to be taken to the hospital for stitches, so I felt that with help I could take care of him and I brought him home on August 10th. We were fortunate to have Charlene Eddy for a while. She is a lovely lady and was good with Archie but she was a school teacher and in late August had to go back to school. Then we were fortunate to find another very nice lady, Margaret Demarins, who is working out very well. She lives in Mound and comes in five mornings a week. She is a very loving person and we both love her and look forward each morning to her coming.

As of today, February 14, 2004, Archie is much better. He is walking better with less pain and his mental ability is improving every day. He will be eight-six this year in November and I will be eighty-four in June. Our children and grandchildren have been so good to help, always willing to lend a hand when needed. We lean on A.M. and Lynnie. They are always very willing to give us a helping hand. Gerry came and stayed with us about three weeks this past summer, which we much appreciated. It was good of Sammy to let her come. The grandchildren do all they can to help and Wayne calls every week.

Dear Diary, wonder of wonders, he and Nana have given us a new granddaughter, Shelley, whom we are looking forward to meeting this summer of 2004. We are all so happy for them.

Chapter 2: The Gusher: A Short Story

In the year of 1891, my grandfather William Asbury Earp heard that there was to be another run for free land in Oklahoma. He and his wife Mary Frances were farmers living in Nebraska. At the time they had four children and were expecting their fifth, but they decided to go to Oklahoma and try for the free land. There were other relatives who decided to go with them also. Grandpa Earp started out with two wagons and teams loaded with their possessions. It was rough traveling in those days by covered wagons and on poor roads. Grandmother lost the baby she was carrying so consequently they didn't make it to Oklahoma in time for the run. They made it to Guthrie and spent the winter there.

When spring came Grandfather was out looking for a place to stay or for someone discouraged by the severe winter and ready to sell his claim. He found one such person three and one-half miles northwest of Stroud. This man had found pioneering a little harder than he liked but he had built a one-room log cabin on his claim. So Grandfather was able to buy his claim from him for a team and harness and a few farming implements, and Grandmother had a home of her own. There was room upstairs for a nice pallet for the children and downstairs for a bed for the adults. On the east side of the cabin was a small stream of water with a clear rocky bottom. The stream also circled the house and had to be crossed to get to the house. It was never very deep and always a great asset to the place, but sometimes in the raining season it could be a problem.

Well, time marched on: Grandfather broke land, dug a cellar, drilled a well, and built a two-story house for his growing family, but they never got rid of the log cabin. It was left in the back for storage. The family also grew and increased in number to include eleven children, seven boys and four girls. They were all taught to work, to be honest, fear God, and love one another. In time there was a one-room school built called Salt Creek about one and a half miles from the house. It was also used as a church.

The community grew, the children grew up and left the nest, the parents grew old and eventually moved into town in Stroud, but they kept the farm, which they rented to my Father, Hugh Earp, one of the seven sons. By this time he had lost his first wife when she gave birth to Kenneth, their only child, and he had married again to Arlie Flatt. To this union four more children were born, of which I am the second.

When I was six years old I started to school at Salt Creek. My brother Ernest was about nine. The two of us walked the mile and a half to school.

At about this same time, 1926, my Grandfather had leased drilling rights on his land to the Carter Oil Company and they were drilling for oil. The well was about three quarters of a mile from the house. My Dad had also helped to dig out a pond for water with his team and a slip. There was great excitement in the area. Everyone's expectations were high. Grandfather had said "if the well comes in, I want every one of my boys to buy a brand new car and I want a picture of them all lined up," but he passed away before the well came in.

One day my brother Ernest and I came home from school hot and thirsty. I went to the water bucket to get a drink and it was dry, so I headed for the outside pump. The pump handle was held on with a bolt. While I was pumping, the bolt fell out and the handle hit me on the forehead. It started bleeding and I started screaming. The driller of the well was living with us and he happened to be there. He heard me crying and he and Ernest grabbed up some rags and we started into Stroud to the doctor's office but met my parents coming home so we switched cars and they took me in to see Dr. Wiles. I still have the scar on my forehead.

The drilling for oil caused a lot of excitement in the area. It was the first well in that part of the country. One day the driller said to my Dad, "Hughie, we are almost there. By morning we will know if there's any oil there. If there is, I've got orders not to bring it in but I like you boys. You are an honest and hard-working bunch, and if there's any oil there we'll know by morning." He opened it up and went home and to bed and by morning it was blowing over the top of the rig. Well, Grandpa didn't live to see it but his boys all got a new Model A apiece and became owners of land instead of renters. God is Good!

Mother's Day, Nachitoches LA, 2008 (above).

Chapter 3: Family History Notes

by Gerry Robideaux

The first known Earp in America was Thomas Earpe who came, it is thought, as an indentured servant to Maryland. Some believe that he first came to S. Carolina and then to Maryland. Thomas Earpe was listed as Junior, so it is safe to assume that his father also was named Thomas. Thomas Sr. must have died in England because there is no record of his being in America. However his widow, Sarah or Mary accompanied her son to the new world. Thomas Jr. was born about 1650 and died about 1720. He owned land along the Patapaco River, northwest of the present site of Baltimore.

Thomas's son John first owned land near his father in Maryland but later sold it and settled along the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia. He was born about 1680 and died about 1744.

Joshua Earp (1706 - 1771) apparently followed his father John to the Potomac River area because in 1737 he sold his property along the Patapaco River and bought land in Virginia. One of Joshua's sons, Caleb Earp, owned and operated a drug store in Alexandria, VA, and during the war of Independence, it is said, the he knew George Washington very well.

Matthew Earp (1736 - 1808), son of Joshua and brother to the above Caleb, owned a large tobacco and cotton plantation, was a member of the court, and served as Sergeant Major in the 10th VA Regiment of the War of Independence. His son Daniel (b. 1758) was a Methodist minister and served as a chaplain during the war. After the war he moved to South Carolina and was the first Methodist missionary in that new country.

Caleb EARP (1768 - 1830), the 8th son of Matthew followed his brother Daniel to South Carolina where he owned land along the Savannah River. He died suddenly in 1830. One of his sons, Caswell, was a great horse raiser and once bought a horse from the estate of former President James Polk.

Matthew, second son of Caleb, married Selena McPherson in 1823. Matthew was well educated, could read Greek and Latin, and was a strong lay leader in the Methodist Church. He moved to Cherokee Co., Alabama, in 1846 and after the War Between the States he moved to Texas. There is no other record of him after that.

Now this is where the story gets interesting. It gives us a glimpse into the life and background of my great grandfather, William Asbury Earp, and the things that formed him and made him the man he was.

Caswell Earp b. 1827 d. 1859, married Mary Jane Deal, b. 1835. Caswell and Mary Jane were married apparently at Cedar Bluff, Alabama in 1853, as recorded in the genealogy compiled by Opal's brother Ernest Earp, from which I quote. "There were two children born to this union: Mary Elizabeth, b. 1854 and William Asbury, b. 1856. Caswell and Mary Jane lived on a small farm just six miles from the Georgia border. Caswell contacted measles and died July 1, 1859, at the age of 32. Mary Jane then married William Earp, b. 1841, younger brother of Caswell's, in June, 1861. He joined Co. I, 19th Infantry of Alabama. William went to war and it was assumed that he was killed.

"Times were very hard for a young widow with two small children, so Mary Jane went in search of some record of her husband. Along the way she met George W. Ewing who was a Corporal in the Union Army. George helped her to look for the missing husband John William. It was reported that Caswell was killed and no trace could be found of him, and Mary Jane then hired out as a cook for Ewing's company, Co. I, 19th Infantry, Ohio. It was common practice for army companies to hire cooks from among the locals, and Mary Jane was desperate to feed and provide for her two small children. Family tradition states that she found Co. I, 19th Inf. Ohio by mistake, thinking it was Co. I, 19th Inf. Alabama.

"Corp. George Ewing and Mary Jane Deal Earp were married June 19, 1864 in Chattanooga, TN and moved from there to Arkansas after the war until 1870. From there they moved to Iowa. The Ewings had five children as follows: Ori, born 1865; Robert Vernon, born 1867; Blanche, born 1869 but died young; Wathie (Hiawatha) born 1871; and Hattie, born Feb 1875. "The young sister of William A. Earp, Mary Elizabeth, died in 1862 of influenza and hardships brought on by the war." She was eight years old.

"According to family tradition, during the War Between the States all the Earp families, including Mary Jane, were burned out by the Union soldiers. They were forced to live in a cave because all their property was destroyed at one point. They walked to Mississippi where they got help from David Earp and then moved on to Texas.

"It is believed that John William Earp was wounded at the battle of Missionary Ridge, Nov. 1863 and after his recovery rejoined his regiment. ...It is also thought that he was captured by the enemy and put in a prison camp. [The "Roll of Prisoners of War at Military Prison, Louisville, KY" shows that a John W. Earp, age 19, from Alabama, Infantry Co. I, was captured on Dec.16, 1864 in Nashville, Tennessee. On Dec. 21, 1864 he was sent to Camp Douglas in Chicago, but no record exists to show that he arrived.]

Another tradition asserts that after the War he migrated to Texas to join his family members there. Communications were poor, the country torn up. Most likely he had no idea where Mary Jane had gone to." She would certainly have had no idea where he was or that he was alive.

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The Earp Family about 1906 (above).

WILLIAM ASBURY EARP was born in Cherokee County, Alabama on April 3, 1856 and died on April 27, 1924. He moved with his mother Mary Jane Deal Earp Ewing and his stepfather George Ewing to Wayne County, Iowa in 1870 at the age of 14. His father was John William Earp, Civil War veteran, also his stepfather George Ewing was a veteran of that war. "William Asbury was married three times: first to Maggie Renshaw at Clio, Iowa, on Aug. 10th, 1881. Maggie died of tuberculosis not long after the marriage. William then went to Kansas and there he married Carrie Mains in late 1882. Carrie died in child birth and the child also. William's third marriage was to Mary Frances Wright, b. Aug. 5, 1862, d. Jan. 23, 1961, daughter of Martin VanBuren and Hannah Petty Wright. They were married Jan. 1, 1884 and moved to Greely County, Nebraska the same year."

Twelve children were born to this union (see photo above, dated about 1910). Coy Jane, Otto George, Ina Elizabeth, William Vernon and Martin Earle were all born in Greely County, NE. The sixth child was born on the trail to Oklahoma Territory and did not survive. Hugh Ernest was born June 4, 1893, in Lincoln County, Oklahoma Territory near the town of Stroud. He was the first of the children born in the new Oklahoma Territory. Following were Ona Hannah, Ira Viola, Oba Asa, John Luther and Claud Russell. All the last six children were born before Oklahoma statehood.

What follows is an excerpt from a story entitled "The Earp Family Arrives Here by Covered Wagon" by Mrs. Don Turner published in the Lincoln County News, Sept. 10, 1959.

"In the fall of 1892 [1891] three little old-fashioned covered wagons drawn by teams of mules, slowly wended their way into the Indian Territory. [Incorrect. It was actually Oklahoma Territory.] Mrs. W. A. (Mary Frances) was the driver of one of the quaint little conveyances, while her husband drove one and her brother, Henry Wright, who was also coming to make his home in the new territory, drove the last of the wagons. Riding in the wagon with Mary Frances was their five children, wide eyed with excitement, as they scanned the wooded hillsides for traces of the painted Indians of which they had heard so much....

"Life had not been easy in Nebraska for this young family so they decided to risk their whole future in this wild and unsettled country. They brought everything that they could stack in the three covered wagons...The trip was tiresome as the wagons jogged along for six weeks over rough muddy roads which had been traveled but very little. ...One night they came upon an Indian camp and after much deliberation, decided to spend the night there. They found the Indians friendly. Nevertheless, Henry Wright...eager to show his bravery, jumped up in the back of the wagon, waved a hatchet and yelled for the Indians to come on and he would chop off their noses.

"They arrived in Guthrie shortly after the Land Run of Sept. 22, 1891, and they knew that they would have to be on the lookout for a claim that they could buy since they had arrived too late to stake one. A stillborn child was born to them shortly after their arrival here. [It was decided to spend the winter here in Guthrie as it was late in year, winter was coming soon, and Mary Frances needed to rest after having given birth.]

"The Earp family spent their first winter in Guthrie, but in the spring they were fortunate in being able to locate a claim that they might acquire for a proper trade. William traded a team of mules, a wagon and a set of harness for the relinquishment of the claim on 160 acres of land five miles northwest of Stroud (in N. Keokuk Township). The claim was located between Oak Valley and Salt Creek schools and at some time or other the Earp children attended both schools. [The 1900 United States Census shows the family-William, Mary, Coy, Otto, Ina, Vernie, Martin, Hugh, Ona, Ara, and Oba-dwelling in N. Keokuk Township, Lincoln Co., Oklahoma Territory, northwest of Stroud. This site would later become known as the "old Earp farm" or "the Home Place" by the extended family members.]

"Their first home in the Indian Territory ...was a one room log structure and this one room served as a kitchen, dining and living room for the family and also a bedroom for William and Mary Frances. There was a ladder that led to the attic room which served as sleeping quarters for the children.

"In later years William became interested in registered horses and jacks. At one time he owned some of the best known blood lines and most high spirited horses in the middle west." [Twenty-five years later oil was discovered on the Earp land. This well became one of many in a very rich oil field. Some of these wells are still producing today, 2017.]go to

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HUGH ERNEST EARP was born June 4, 1893, in N. Keokuk Township, Lincoln County, Oklahoma Territory. Hughie was the sixth child born to William Asbury Earp and Mary Frances Wright and the first of their 12 children born in the new Oklahoma Territory. About 1914 Hughie married Lenna Wilburn, daughter of Robert and Martha Wilburn. The Wilburn family lived on an adjoining farm to the Earp farm. To this union Kenneth Hugh Earp was born Nov. 30, 1914. Lenna died four weeks later from infection following the child birthing. She is buried in Black Cemetery, northwest of Stroud.

On Dec. 26, 1916, Hughie married Arlie Avenell Flatt, b. Feb . 29, 1896, in Meno, Major County, (now Woods county) Indian Territory, daughter of William Cornelias Flatt and Mary Elizabeth Neff. To this union were born four children, Ernest Faye, b. July 17, 1917, Opal Mary, b. June 5, 1920, Vera Dene, b. Mar 26, 1922, and Wendell Wiles, b. July 10, 1923.

Hughie was a successful farmer and in later life a business owner. He loved horse trading, like his dad, and raising fine horses. Hughie bred and raised Percheron horses. He, his dad and brothers all won many blue ribbons at the Lincoln County Fair for their wonderful Percheron horses. Hughie never tired of telling his horse trading stories and his grandchildren were a captive audience for his tales. In his later years, many a Sunday afternoon was spent on the front porch telling horse trading tales with the children and grandchildren gathered around. Hughie passed away Sep. 12, 1975. He was 83 years old.
Chapter 4: Coda by the Editors

Archie McClellan Pounds passed away March 4th, 2004, in Tulsa and was buried in Chandler. Opal Mary Pounds passed away June 28, 2009, in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and was brought to Chandler to lie beside him. Opal got to see her new granddaughter at Archie's funeral, where she threw a flower into her granddad's grave, and again in the summers of 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Oak Park Cemetery, Chandler OK (above).

Web Site: "The Earp Family of Lincoln County, Oklahoma" http://oklahomaearps.blogspot.jp/

