Okemah, OK

We were going to rest today... Ansel has been a good sport, but he's pretty tired. If he gets back to OB Riley, Bend Oregon, he may never get in a car again with me...

So I thought we'd just kick back today and hang out with cousin Dee. It was an incredible 75 degrees, blue sky, no wind to speak of gorgeous day. I got in a nice 2 mile walk, and then decided that if we were going to make to Okemah we'd better go this afternoon. So that's what we did.

While driving down there, I laughed out loud at a billboard advertisement for Grape Ranch Winery. It said, "Just like CA, only not as fruity".

Let's see the Marshall family had left Iowa in 1915 and moved to Okemah, OK. Ansel's dad, Hiram W. Marshall bought and operated a Livery Stable in Okemah. Ansel said it didn't take his dad long to experience the negative side to renting horses and equipment, and changed his business to trading/selling horses and mules. Ansel remembered that it was at an intersection where the highway went four ways and there was a ditch with a wooden bridge beside the Livery building. When we got to Okemah we drove around and guessed at where things might have been. We looked for the railroad and couldn't find any sign of it. We stopped and asked to learn that it had been torn out sometime in the 40's. Finally Ansel saw the water towers and remembered the little one was there when he was a boy. We drove up to it, and it had a steel manufacture plate dated 1910.

We drove by the schools and there was a glimmer of recognition. He said he thought this was where the elementary school was, and if it was then there house was just a block or two to the SW. He remember there was an outhouse on the SW side of the school that was the attached to the back of the building. He said the indian kids would climb up on the roof and pee on the white kids when they went into it, so he never used it and would run home at lunch time.

Then Ansel saw a white building that reminded him of a white church that his mother used to take them to. He remembered an incident where there was a preacher who had prophesied that the world was going to end on a certain day. Ansel said that his mother took all three of the children down to the church, which was a white clapboard sided smallish building that had a big grassy area surrounding it. He said that there was 100's of towns folk surrounding it, listening to the "Hell fire and brimstone" preaching, while waiting for the world to end. He said it was pretty anti-climatic... the world didn't end, and they walked home and had dinner.

As we were driving around we'd stop and look for corner stones in the old buildings. I'd tell Ansel, well do you remember that building? it was here, it was built in .... I stopped to look at The First Baptist Church which to me looked like it might have been the first high school. It's cornerstone said that it was built in 1907. As we drove by, I saw an older lady visiting with someone in front as we drove by, so I parked and asked if they were locals? She said yes and was very accommodating with early information about the town. She was born in 1920 and was still selling real estate. She confirmed that the original elementary school was where Ansel thought. When I asked about the livery stable, she said she knew exactly where it was, as her dad owned the auto station right across the road from it. She offered to show us where it was. When we got down there, it made perfect sense from Ansel's recollection. It was down in the flat, his house would have been about a mile to the SW. There was a ditch that ran beside the road. She said the WPA had rebuilt it with soapstone to what it is today. It was on the SE side of a four way intersection, with the railroad being 1/4 mile or so to the north of it.

I wish it would have worked out to be there on a weekday, so that i could have gone to the Courthouse and Library... but it didn't... oh well. So next week I'm going to contact the Okemah Library and see if anyone has any pictures from 1915-20 showing the Livery Stable.

Ansel recalled being about 5-6 years old and his family going to visit the Lester family who ranched north of Okemah. He remembered that his parents slept inside the Lester's house, and the kids had to sleep on the front porch in a pile of corn husks. He said there weren't any blankets, that they had to burrow down in the corn husks and cover themselves with the corn husks for warmth.

Tomorrow we are off to the 101 Ranch in Ponca City.