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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: December 17, 1937
Name: Ida May Powers
Post Office: Sentinel, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: May 17, 1893
Place of Birth: Texas
Father: Sam A. Brandon
Place of Birth: Tennessee
Information on father: Farmer
Mother: Emma McGaughy
Place of birth: Mississippi
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Ruby Wolfenbarger
 
I was born in Texas May 17, 1893. We were just about twenty miles from the Territory line.

My father, Sam A. Brandon, wanted more land and cattle. We didn't have but about forty acres of land.

We moved to the Territory December 24, 1900. We had two wagons, about fifteen head of cattle, lots of chickens and a few turkeys.

We crossed Red River about dark; the river was all ice and when we drove the wagons onto the ice they broke through and we nearly froze to death. We had to leave the cattle until the next morning. The next morning was Christmas day; we landed at Marietta, in the southern part of the state. This was timbered country with lots of blackjack, elm, cottonwood, post oak and persimmon trees.

My first home was a log house which had a sheet-iron top skinned with lime and mud and a dirt floor. We didn't have any screen doors and had half slide windows with leather hinges. For our broom we used broom weeds, which grew around there when we first came to the Territory. Our only lights were candles or strings braided and put into pans of grease. We had plenty of wood to burn; it wasn't any trouble to go out and get a load of wood. We had to haul water about three miles and this was very inconvenient in the winter time.

Father planted cotton, corn, and mixed feed. We sold our corn for about 50 cents per bushel. My mother made our vinegar out of apples. We had to grind our coffee. We made our sorghum in the Fall.

There was some wild game around there, squirrel, rabbit, quail and opossum. My brother trapped in the Winter. There was lots of wild grapes, plums and berries.

I went to a subscription school about tree months out of the year. The school house was one room, made from cottonwood logs, had split cottonwood logs for seats; we didn't have desks. The only books that we had were spellers and we had slates and pencils. The teacher was the only one who had an arithmetic, she put the lesson on the blackboard and we had to copy it on our slates. We had to walk three miles. Our lunch consisted of sorghum molasses with a little butter and cornbread.

We had church in the school house. This was about the only time that the neighbors ever visited. We had big dinners on the ground during the summer months after the crops were made.

All children had to work and help in the fields. Some of them had to work out for the neighbors and help provide for the family.

My father went to town about once a year to buy our winter supplies; he just bought what we really had to have. We had very few clothes in the early days.

I lived at Marietta with my parents until I was married to Jim POWERS, one of the neighbor boys, then we moved near there and farmed until we moved out here near Sentinel.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Richard Roper <rroper@gotnet.net> January 2000.