THE THELMER MOORE STORY August 6, 1915
Poppy told me, Bill, to go to the field and find some cotton and pick it.
I come back and told him that there wasn't any open yet.
Poppy told me to go out to the trees and pick out some pecans.
I come back and told him that there wasn't any falling yet, it was to early.
He sent me back to look again.
The third time I come back, I heard a baby crying.
I said, "Merry Christmas, and Santy Clause hasn't got here yet."
Thelmer was born, he was given only that one name.
(He never needed a birth certificate until he was 32 years old and starting to work at General Dynamics on January 21, 1947. His original birth certificate was on record. On August 25, 1915, Dr W R Fulton filled out his birth certificate. August 6, 1915, was the date that he put on it.
The family always thought he was born on August 26, 1916. Doctor Fulton made the date to be-one year and 20 days--earlier than we had always thought it to be. Gradually Thelmer changed his birth date on his records.
(The year of his 75th birthday, his Grandaughter told her teacher that her Gran Pa was 150 years old. The teacher questioned her. Julia had a good, simple explanation---he had two birthdays every year, August 6,
and August 26. That made him 150 years old.)
HARD TIMES Lee remembers how hard times were.
"We nearly starved to death the summer that Thelmer was born. We were using a team of mules to pull trees to make the crossties. The mules belonged to Granpa Stephens. Him and Uncle Burl come and got them.”
Bill remembers, “Poppy had been dragging trees and was taking the mules to get a drink. I wanted a little ride, Poppy throwed me up on a mule, to ride to the water. When the mule put his head down, to get a drink---
I slid down ever his head. The water was waist deep, I was bawling and 'as mad as a wet hen,' and Poppy knew it to."
THE LETTER EDGED IN BLACK was addressed to Poppy. We knew it meant a death in the family. Mommy wouldn't open it until Poppy come in. Grandma Coleman wrote that Granpa had died. He had to be buried before we could get there. Grandma wanted to deed her 80 acre farm to Poppy; if he would move in and care for her until she died. Poppy knew those 80 acres wasn't enough to raise a family on, but Grandma needed him.
Poppy turned the cross tie business over to Uncle Matt and Aunt Maude. Lee was always 'sore' at Uncle Matt and Aunt Maude, for the 'business deal', that Poppy ended up with---nothing.
Lee always tried to stay away from that family.
MOVING We got in the wagon with some of our things,
Lee (10), Bill (6), Trumon (4), Sylvia (2), and Thelmer was the baby.
The Arkansas River was so big and wide. We crossed it on the ferry at Webber Falls. Poppy had us get out of the wagon, as the ferry moved on
the water. He stood at the head of the team to keep them calm.
Thirty miles was such a long trip. We had to stop 'where night caught us'.
Mommy never did give any milk, and Thelmer had to have a bottle.
We were glad to see Grandma at her house and move in. The house was built for 2 families. It had a long open hall down the middle of it.
We put what we had brought with us, in the part of the house that was
across from Grandma's side. There were two fireplaces, one on each side. One of them had a loose rock, built into the hearth, and there was a hole under it. Grandma told me that it was made there to hide food from the Yankees, during the Civil war. Poppy rested the horses and went back to
get the rest of our things from Blackgum Mountain, Lee went with him.
THE FIRE Bill remembers, it was summer time, we didn't have a fire in the fireplace. Grandma said, "I'm sick, you all sleep on this side with me."
Mommy put a featherbed on the floor, and us 4 kids on it, she slept with Grandma. A noise of flames woke me up and I started screaming to Mommy that there was a fire. At first she told me to go back to sleep. She opened the door and the other side was burning big. She got the mattress and us 4 kids out in the yard. Grandma wouldn't move. Mommy picked her up in her arms and carried her out. The roof started falling in, on the other side.
Both rock fireplaces fell over, the house completely burned.
Freeman Keith rode up on his horse. I had on a little old thin gown.
I realized that I didn't have any panties on and I was bawling.
Freeman Keith thought I was hurt and he asked me why I was crying.
"I ain't got no panties."
(Mommy never would let us sleep with anything tight around our waist.)
He kinda sniggered and told me, "You're going to be all right. If you will 'hush up', I'll see that you get everything that you need tomorrow,"
Freeman Keith said that his son Paul and his wife had just separated and he had moved to Oklahoma City. "You folks had just as well move in their house. It is just down the road, it has furniture and is big enough for all you". The next day he took his wagon and went to Porum and come back with panties and everything that we needed. His wife made me a chocolate cake.
I wouldn't eat any of it, Mommy never made one that black.
The fire started on an outside wall, away from where any fires would be. It was summer time and we had no fires in the fireplaces. I always thought there was resentment over us getting Grandmas's place. I thought that someone deliberately set the fire. A neighbor rode out and met Poppy before he got in sight of the house, and told him where we were.
Before long, Poppy rode the 'motor' (a railroad car, a form of public transportation) to Muskogee. He borrowed a thousand dollars from Wadlin Investment and build a new house. He never paid any on the principal.
He never would talk about the loan or say a word about, it to anyone.
It was a Sunday morning, not long after we moved from Blackgum to take care of Grandma Coleman. Poppy said he wanted to go and decorate his Mothers grave. He told me to go and cut a box full of lilac blooms from the big bush in the yard. We rode to the Briartown cemetery in our wagon. I thought we wouldn't ever get there.
Thelmer was the baby, but it wasn't long before Alvin was born. Grandma Coleman went too, Poppy went right to his Mothers grave on the back of the cemetery. It had a kinda tall sand rock with a sloping corner.
It had some scratchings on it and a 'distinct look'.
("80 years later, James, Joe and Lorene took me back to the Briartown Cemetery, and I walked straight to that stone at the back, next to the fence. We all went together and bought a nice granite headstone and put it there, and one at Little Nellie' grave, next to it. The tall rock is now at the foot.)
Poppy started crying. He set there and cried, seemed like half a day.
I wanted to help him---to do something. I set by him and cried too.
Poppy never did say anything about his past---he never would. He would cry. We come back by Henry Hicks. He said, "You folks have got to eat something." His wife fixed food, and we were glad to get it.
GRANMA COLEMAN died July 6, 1916--eleven months after Thelmer's birth. Olis Alvin was born in 1917. Mommy never did give milk. We always had a special milk cow for the babies' milk. She was always kept in the lot and fed special. We all loved to eat wild green onions, fried or raw. They were the first green thing that come up in the spring, cows liked to eat them too. But if a cow ate onions or 'bitter weed', the milk was ruined, because it tasted so bitter. If a cow ate peanut hay, it would make the butter taste funny.
In hot weather, milk was put in a crock jar and a damp cloth over it.
Real hot weather, we let milk down in the well, to keep it cool.
It had to be kept sweet for the baby's bottle and to make gravy.