Memories of Living In Henryetta

My very first memory is one of standing in the yard of our house on Wilson Road north of Henryetta, a small town in east central Oklahoma. It was a cool hazy or overcast morning probably in the fall or spring. There may have been a mist or fog in the air. The house sat up on a hill and from there I had a view to the East. In the distance I could hear the sounds of a train. I have a very special feeling about this memory. This is probably from the year 1951.

I have a few other vague memories from living on Wilson Road. I remember something about a water cistern. Dad and other relatives were working to clean it out or to repair it. I also recall standing up behind the front seat of our 1948 Kaiser and singing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" with my sisters as our family drove into town for church on a Sunday morning.

When the family decided to move back into town in 1951, I recall going to look at the house we were going to buy at 701 W. Jefferson. It was in the evening, probably after Dad got off work at Tiger’s Garage, and it was dark by the time we finished looking and visiting with the Guynes family. I remember running around the yard after dark. Their son Larry had a neat toy gun that shot plastic balls about the size of a baseball.

The driveway of our place on Jefferson Street had two or three shade trees and under the corner tree was a sandy dirt area that was great for playing with toy cars. I spent a lot of time outdoors playing with neighbor kids. The neighborhood around the South 7th Street and West Jefferson Street area was an interesting place for a boy to grow up. Some of the boys in that area who were my age were my cousin Bobby (Robert Middleton), Joe Simpson, Jimmy Ray Nail and his cousins, and Alfred Andrew Moore. I know Alfred’s middle name was Andrew because I could often hear his mother calling him from the back door of their house about a block away.

Not too many years after we moved in, Dad bought a single car garage with a loft and utility room on the back and had it moved onto our property about fifteen to twenty feet west of the house and slightly to the right of the existing dirt driveway. He bought it from Bryan Tiger, the owner of Tiger’s Garage where Dad worked. I recall the day when some young men from the Long Bell Lumber Yard delivered sand, cement, gravel, and some other materials to our house for Dad to use in building a foundation for the garage. They drove a Ford truck and the smell of the materials and the sight and sounds of the truck and young men who delivered the stuff is still vivid in my memory.

The memories of Dad working at Tiger’s Garage are an important part of my young life in Henryetta. Dad often worked at night to complete jobs before payday. He would take me with him and I got to see and experience a lot of automotive stuff from an early age and at the same time get all dirty and greasy. Dad would clean up my hands and knees with Go Jo cleaner and have me sit on his lap and pretend to drive on the way home late at night. I always thought he wanted me to be with him and learn about auto mechanics at a young age, but looking back now with a different perspective I am sure that my Mom insisted that he take me with him for two primary reasons: 1.) Because I was about to drive her and my sisters crazy at home. and 2.) Because she didn’t like Dad being out alone at night.

An interesting and risky area to explore was the abandoned Texaco oil tank farm west of the KO&G Railroad tracks which bordered the west side of our small acreage on Jefferson Street. The tanks were removed shortly after we moved to that place but the rim dikes and pools of black crude oil sludge were left behind creating both safety and environmental hazards. But this was an interesting place to play. Beyond the tank farm, and a little to the northwest, was an area known as Hobo Jungle. Apparently there were hobos or transient people who sometimes lived in this area between the KO&G and Frisco tracks.

The railroad tracks themselves were another place where my cousin Bobby and I spent a lot of time exploring and walking. The tracks were the quickest way to walk to town and also the best way for us to get to the Henryetta golf course on foot. Walking toward town, there was a trestle which seemed like a very large and frightening thing to cross as a kid. It crossed over Coal Creek where there was a good swimming area to the west and a falls directly below known as Seven Falls. We would always look carefully in both directions before starting across the trestle. Then, all the way across the trestle, I would feel the dreadful fear of being run over by a train. We would usually talk about what we would do if a train came upon us while we were on the bridge. We generally agreed that we would try to get down on the supports along the side and hang on tight rather than jump off.

However, without a doubt, the most interesting and memorable area to explore was the area we called Kraft’s pasture. It was the pasture for a dairy herd of the Kraft family who had an active dairy farm and a relatively nice home a few blocks south of us along 7th Street. Their home site east of the tracks included a small dairy products facility down a narrow driveway past their house where my family often drove to buy milk. Their pasture was an area of maybe 160 acres west of the KO&G tracks and south of the abandoned tank farm site. Along the eastern two thirds of that land was a very nice pasture with a maze of cow trails meandering through it. The western portion of the property was a paradise for young boys in the area. Coal creek separated the pasture land from rugged wooded hills to the west. This area provided a wide range of terrain and natural interests for us. The creek had a nice pool like area which had developed in a bend. This is where I learned to swim. In the early summer the pool was full with water flowing through it but by August the flow decreased and the pool would become stagnant and not a good place to swim. It was not unusual for us to see cotton mouth snakes in the creek. A little further downstream was a very steep washed out bank on the west side of the creek. In 1957, it seemed pretty big and we called it “The Cliff”. It was probably not more the ten feet high but to us it was a lot of fun to try to climb up the face of it without sliding back down.

Music has always been a very important part of my life. Not performing it or playing any musical instrument, but just hearing music and singing along was always so powerful in me. Geraldine liked to listen to music on the radio at home and I have so many memories of the popular songs from the mid-1950s to 1960 that I heard there in the living room of our home in Henryetta.

I attended Roosevelt Elementary School all six elementary years from 1953 to 1959. Walking to school was an outdoor adventure. We would walk across a field where a spring was located in an old abandoned brick or rock building. I think the spring was known as Gilliam Spring. The path took us through the field and across a small creek. We crossed about four barbed wire fences along the way. Along the path at a bend of this creek was a large tree. The flood waters of the creek had washed away some of the soil under the tree creating a tunnel. The tunnel was a great place to play.

Some of my friends at Roosevelt were Jimmy Tarwater, Marilyn Bissett, Joyce Dudley, Darlene Childress, Beverly Bevan, Gary Merryman, Phil Hayes, Gail Hamilton, James Duty, Tommy Langwell, Jimmy Alston, Jimmy Sheperd Francis Crunk, and Bobby Lockery.

In 1957, the Cushman Highlander motor scooter was a very popular item for young boys my age. It seems that Jimmy, Gary, Phil, and Bobby each had one. I wanted one so bad but of course it was not something my family could afford and probably Dad would not have allowed me to have even if they could. But Jimmy was a very generous friend and would take me with him all around town on the back of his Highlander. A lot of our time was spent searching for empty pop bottles along the roads so we could return them for the deposit and use the money to buy gasoline for the scooter. Jimmy was one of the few people I knew who attended our church. His mom, Juanita was always nice to me and their home was very clean and nice. It always smelled so good when I would go in there with him. He had an older sister, Rusty, who married young and she and her mom would take Jimmy and me to the skating rink to drop us off and pick us up later. I recall that my mom bought me a cool looking black and white shirt and matching slacks and I thought I looked real good in 1957. Also, Jimmy’s grandmother, Mrs. Westfall, lived near our church and Jimmy and I would often go to her house. She was blind and her little house always seemed very dark inside, but also smelled nice. She had bread in a breadbox and that was the first time I had ever heard of bread being kept in a box. Dad talked a lot about her husband who was deceased at this time. Mr. Westfall was a good carpenter and Dad learned a lot about carpentry and building when he helped Mr. Westfall and others build the new addition to our church in the late 1940’s.

Also, Jimmy’s Dad had a plumbing business in town, Fretwell’s. Jimmy and I would stop in there at times and I was always impressed when his Dad would pull out a wad of money from his pocket with a rubber band around it and peel off a dollar or two for Jimmy.

I usually rode around town on my bicycle and often stopped in at Progressive Chevrolet where Dad worked from 1956 to 1960. He always seemed proud of me and would introduce me to people there. Once I recall seeing World Champion Cowboy Jim Shoulders in the showroom of the dealership. He was friends with the owner, Red Holmes and did a lot of business there. I recall going there with Dad one night and watching him prepare a new 1957 Chevrolet for delivery just at the time when they were being shown. Each September was a very special time of anticipation and secrecy as people awaited the day when new car models would be shown.

Jimmy Tarwater and I used to spend some time at Joyce Dudley’s and Marilyn Bissett’s houses. They taught us how to dance in Joyce’s garage and in Marilyn’s living room. They would play Elvis records and now whenever I hear an Elvis song it takes me back to those times when Jimmy and I were with Marilyn and Joyce. We were only grade school age but all seemed to have good innocent fun together as boys and girls. It was a time of flirtation and infatuation.

Also in grade school, I seemed to get into to fights. I think I must have been a little out-spoken or smart-alleck, but not too much so. Anyway, I somehow attracted the attention of bullies and others who liked to start fights. I think some of the other boys, like Jimmy, would somehow provoke these things. The first incident occurred in first grade when the smallest kid in the class, Donald Jones, punched me in the stomach and knocked the breath out of me. I just cried and did nothing. When I told Dad about this, he was not happy with my response and told me next time to fight back.

In about the fourth or fifth grade, I began to have on-going trouble with a kid named Kenny Powders. I have no idea why, but he would walk along with me after school and want to fight. There were several times when we would fight each other, punching and wrestling around. The worst time was one day when Kenny and I ended up alone in Jimmy Tarwater’s grandmother’s backyard. We fought and at one point I felt like I would finally defeat him and he might leave me alone. But Kenny was such a tough and determined kid and would not give up. I was so tired and wanting to quit and so he got the better of me. Just at that time Mom appeared and I got in the car and went home with her.

There were other problems with guys in Junior High too. Wesley Howard wanted to fight me one day and I recall just telling him I didn’t want to fight and so he really had a great time taunting me. Also, there was this tough kid named Jimmy Smithy who could take out his two front teeth and looked pretty mean. One day he confronted me in 7th grade class because I had shoved his little friend, Donald Jones (yes the one from first grade). Anyway he told me he would be waiting for me after school and would beat me up. Somehow my escape plan worked and I was able to get away from school without seeing him. Soon after that he moved back to California and I was so glad.

Another conflict developed when I was at a high school football game in the fall of 1959. I was sitting up on the top row looking down at people below and apparently someone else spit on them. This kid a year or two older than me (one of the Harjo boys, maybe Larry) thought I did it so he came up there and called me out and wanted to fight. Fortunately, a couple of older boys who knew Geraldine and Joe intervened and prevented me from being hurt. However, the rest of the school year, when this guy would meet me in the hall, between classes, he would punch me hard on the arm.

The school year of 1959-1960 was my last year to live in Henryetta and Okmulgee County. That was my first year in junior high where students from six small elementary schools came together in one larger school. It was during this school year that several girls talked me into inviting a girl to the junior high prom in the spring of 1960. The girl was Linda Radebaugh. I remember my parents taking me out to pick her up in a 1948 Cadillac that dad had acquired in some kind of trade. It was a little embarrassing and awkward but ended up being a fun time and a good memory. The event was held in the Teen Town place which was located in the top floor of a two story building which housed a couple of businesses on the ground floor, including Tiger’s Garage where dad had worked until 1956. The theme of the prom was Hawaiian. We all received a lei upon entering the prom. I recall the smell of strong perfume and sitting around the edge of the dance floor most of the evening but also slow dancing a couple of times. Several of us ended up at the Patty Ann café one block north. I think her parents picked us up and dropped me off at home. I kept the lei in my room for years afterward as a reminder of that first prom date.

In the summer of 1960, probably at the end of the school, there was a party that I will always remember. One of the girls from my Roosevelt class had a birthday party followed by a great hay ride that evening after dark. This was one of the greatest times of my early experiences of being in physical contact with girls in a sensual or romantic way. I remember being very close with a couple of girls on the ride and then later in the girl’s backyard several of us guys and girls ended up wrestling and rolling around in the grass. It was a very flirtatious and exciting time.

In the winter of 1960, a Chevrolet dealer passed through Henryetta and stopped by Progressive Chevrolet. His name was Boyd Perkins, owner of Perkins Chevrolet in Chelsea, Oklahoma. He was looking for a mechanic to work in his dealership and would guarantee a minimum of $75.00 per week to the person he selected for this position.

At that time, things had not been going well in Henryetta and the two primary employers, Eagle Picher Smelter and the Pittsburgh Glass Plant, had layed off many of their workers. Henryetta is a small town originally prospering in the coal mining and oil field booms of the early 1900’s.

But because of the economic downturn that winter, Dad, a 40 year old mechanic with one eye and five children was intrigued by the idea of a minimum weekly salary of $75.00 and the potential to make much more. On a recent payday, he had received only $45.00 net pay. This created the need for a change; and soon.

So, in February, 1960, after several smaller than expected paychecks, Dad decided to drive up to Chelsea and talk to the dealer who had stopped by that cold winter day when work had been scarce. Being a good family man, he took mom and the three younger kids along.

The drive to Chelsea had its moments of excitement as the family drove through Tulsa, a big city in comparison to Henryetta. But heading north out of Claremore on Route 66, the terrain and the winter climate made for a desolate and unappealing scene, even for folks accustomed to Oklahoma winters.

Later that year, we moved to Chelsea just in time to begin the new school year. On the day we moved, all of our local relatives came to see us off. That was my first memory of Uncle Wayne being at our house. We briefly left my dog, Champ, a mix of Boxer and Collie, with Uncle Wayne but later took him up to Chelsea with us.

Over the years we have made many trips back to Henryetta to visit. I still enjoy driving around the town to reminisce when I am traveling through the area.