My
father, Dennis Lockwood, was born in the family farmhouse in 1900.
His Dad, Jasper Newton Lockwood, had homesteaded 160 acres of land
near a town that was barely in existence in 1889. It was called Still
Water Valley before it was known as Stillwater. It was listed in a
map as a town with no name for a long time.
It
didn’t attract much interest because it was hard to get to without
roads. Indians began to move into the area because of the white
people taking over everything else. It became known as Indian
Territory.
President
Abraham Lincoln had signed the Homestead Act in 1862 so legal
settlers could claim lots up to 160 acres in size. If a settler lived
on the land and improved it, he could then receive the title to the
land.
There
was a date set for the Land Rush. This is what my Grandpa entered
into. They lived in Illinois or Indiana at the time. Grandpa was born
in Indiana and Grandma was born in Illinois, so I am not sure where
they settled after they married. I didn’t pay much attention to
such details when I was a kid.
Some
of the individuals who participated in the run entered early and hid
out until the legal time of entry to lay quick claim to some of the
choicest homesteads. These people came to be identified as ‘Sooners’.
This led to hundreds of legal contests that arose and were decided
first at local land offices and eventually by the U.S. Department of
the Interior.
Arguments
included what constituted the "legal time of entry.” While
some people think that the settlers who entered the territory at the
legally appointed time were known as "boomers", the term
actually refers to those who campaigned for the opening of the lands,
led by David L. Payne. The county was named after this man.
Several
rivers flowed across Oklahoma, including the Cimarron, which received
the flow of numerous small streams that flooded with the seasons. One
of these persisted through frequent droughts.
Cattlemen
began to take an interest in the area because of the water from the
river. It was named Still Water Creek. It was a nice stopping over
place for the travelers. From there a colony of Boomers, whose
presence there in 1885 forced open the Indian land to white
settlement.
Many
traveled in a wagon train with many wagons and families. They took
household items and food to last for several days. There had been so
much rain that the trails were soaked and muddy.
Grandma
stayed behind with the seven kids while Grandpa went on the venture
alone on horseback. He staked a claim of farmland Northeast of
Stillwater. He owned the property the rest of his life and was able
to attain more acres. It ended up being 360 acres.
They
lived in a dugout while they built the house. My father, Dennis, was
born in the new house in 1900. He was the youngest of the children.
There were seven boys and one girl. My aunt Carrie was the oldest.
Many of the people lived in dugouts while their houses were being
built. The house is two stories, but not very large, and it is still
standing today with people living in it. He had three brothers that
died at very young ages, late teens and 20's. Dad told me they died
from kidney problems. I'm not sure if it was someone’s guess or if
anyone knew for sure.
Grandma
L was 73 when she passed away. She predicted her own death to the
day, and she was not sick. She just knew what day she was going to
die. I don’t know what caused her death. Maybe it’s like having
faith, if you believe something strong enough it will happen. It has
stuck in my head all these years. I was four years old and was
outside playing when it happened. I don’t know why we were at their
house that day, but I remember all the hustling and running around.
People were coming and going all over the place.
So
I found a quiet place behind the cellar under some bushes where I hid
myself and fell asleep. I woke up when I heard everybody calling my
name. Until my Grandmother died, my parents lived on the backside of
the farm and raised their own crops. They raised cotton, sorghum
cane, and corn. They had turkeys, goats, cows and horses.
The
house only had two rooms with a screened in porch. One day my mother
was tending to her garden while Cecil about three years old was sleeping in a bed by the
window. Ray was just a few months old, and was playing on the floor
while she went to the garden just a few feet from the house. As she
started back to the house she noticed a lot of smoke was shooting out
of the top of the house. She ran and opened the door, Ray had crawled
to the door so she was able to pull him out easily, but flames were
holding her back from entering to rescue Cecil. She ran to the window
by the bed he was sleeping in. The window had screen wire nailed over
it. She found a way to rip the screen off and pulled Cecil out. They
lost everything. The house burned to the ground. They speculated that
a mouse may have found the matchbox and chewed on a match and set the
fire. There was no fire in the stove, the matches were out of reach
of a baby, and the house had not been wired for electricity so
electrical wires could not have caused it. The trauma and fear my
mother experienced caused her to have a miscarriage later that day.
I was the result of her next pregnancy, which was about a year later.
My
Dad and his brothers and Grandpa built another house in the same
area. It was a larger house and much nicer than the first one. I was
about three years old and one day my big brother, Cecil and Ray
wanted to walk over and visit Grandpa and Grandma on the other side
of the farm. I wanted to go so it was decided that I could go as long
as Cecil and Ray held my hands so I wouldn’t get lost. So we went
to visit Grandma and Grandpa. This is another one of my earliest
memories. I really thought this was a big deal to go with my brothers
like that. We got over there and they made a big fuss over us.
Grandma had us sit on a little bench by the front window while she
went to the kitchen to make us a snack. Grandpa kept talking to us
and asking questions. Grandma came back in with a plate of biscuits
with butter and Jelly on them. She gave each of us one and I remember
how delicious it was. Grandma had a shelf in the living room with
three kewpie dolls which she had made dresses for each one out of
crepe paper in different colors. They were so beautiful and I wished
I could play with them, but Grandma said they were just to look at.
They also had a telephone on the wall. It was made out of dark wood
and was big and trimmed with black wood. I didn’t know what it was
for, so I asked, and they told me it was to talk into. We finally had
to go home so we started out with them holding my hands, but they got
tired of that so we could run or whatever we wanted to. We saw a car
coming and you hardly ever saw a car out on our roads and the boys
were so excited about it. It was black and had no top. When it got
nearer I was scared and ran to a tree to hide behind. The tree was
not big but I was standing behind it and could peek around at the
car. When the car got even with us the man stuck out his arm and
pointed straight at me. Now I was really scared, but it kept going so
I was safe. I thought that was a really big event, to see a car with
no top or even just to see a car.
Everything
was hard work. It was a lot of work to create something as wonderful
as sorghum molasses. There was no running to the local Safeway and
picking up a bottle of Mrs. Butter-Worth’s syrup, original, lite or
otherwise. It just wasn’t done. Molasses are delicious on pancakes,
cornbread or biscuits and is a wonderful sweetener for cookies. To
make the sorghum molasses takes a lot of time as well as hard work
from the growing of the cane to the entire process of cutting it and
bringing it from the field. It was especially hard work for the
horse, which had to walk in a small circle all day, to operate the
press that was squeezing the syrup out of the cane.
The
yellow colored syrup flowed over a large tray and was heated to a
boiling point. I would explain it better, but I was very young and my
memory has faded a little. I do remember that my little brother,
Bennie was only a toddler and was accidentally splashed with the
boiling syrup. I remember the pathetic screams and all the scrambling
my parents did to find some relief for him. It took hours to produce
enough molasses to can in fruit jars. Enough had been preserved to
last until the next year.
The
turkeys were sold and Mom was able to buy a much needed winter coat.
The cotton field was picked with help from the neighbors. The
neighbors helped you and you helped the neighbors when help was
needed. The cotton had been packed into a large four-wheeled trailer
to be taken to town the following Monday morning to be sold. Sunday
night the family went to church to fellowship with the neighbors. A
good time was had by all, and when they came home and drove into the
yard Daddy said, “What happened to the trailer; somebody must have
stolen it.”
When
they went inside they found that somebody had also stolen the sorghum
molasses and Mom’s new coat. Think of all that work, just snatched
away from them. It was a sad time. Thievery was not as rampant at
that time as it is today. The news of the stolen cotton and sorghum
was spread around. Uncle Tom came over right away and said he had
heard about our loss. He was so outraged; he offered to go gunning
for the thief. He helped try to track down the trailer wheels, but
they kept running into dead ends. It took years to forget the
disappointment and hardship of the theft. It was talked about
forever. That is why I remember it so well. This story was repeated
over and over to different folks they would meet. One time they
brought up the incident to Uncle Tom while visiting him in Colorado.
It was then that Uncle Tom decided to make a confession.
He
was the thief, and he thought it highly amusing that he was over
there guiding them away from the tracks instead of helping. There is
just something about it. A thief or murderer cannot resist bragging
about their crime.
Uncle
Tom ended up being driven out of the State of Oklahoma by the county
sheriff because of his bootlegging and whiskey making. I think that
is what he used the sorghum molasses for.
He
left the state and moved to Colorado and never returned again.
Not the end. Maybe another chapter later.
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| This is a more recent picture of the old house. It is still standing and the last I heard people were living in it. |
