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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: October 20, 1937
Name: J. W. Boothe
Post Office: Cordell, Oklahoma
Residence Address: 412 College
Date of Birth: March 14, 1870
Place of Birth: Tarrant County, Texas
Father: W. H. Boothe
Place of Birth: Henry County, Tennessee
Information on father: Stockman
Mother: Malinda Hullen
Place of birth: Kentucky
Information on mother: Housekeeper
Field Worker: Ida B. Lankford
 
We came to Washita County in December 1899. We bought three hundred and fifty acres of land one mile south and two and three-quarter miles west of Cordell, giving a team and wagon and $600.00 in money. There were my wife, and one baby, two years old, my mother and I. My mother died in 1918. We raised two boys, Claud Boothe, who lives on our farm joining Cordell on the northwest, and William E. Boothe, who is now employed by the Phillips Petroleum Company of Bartlesville. Our oldest boy, Claud, completed High School in Cordell, and William E. attended the A. & M. College at Stillwater, and secured his A.B. degree. Both boys have families and are doing well.

When we bought our first farm we moved into a dugout. A continuous spell of rain caused our dugout to cave in. That was when we built our first house. There were two rooms and we were proud of it. There were very few houses in the country at that time. Later we built another room. We were gradually accumulating more stock and adding tools as we needed them. We never put a mortgage on our home. We were always afraid of debt. Finally, one of our neighbors wanted to leave so we bought him out. This added another eighty acres. I lacked $500.00 having enough money, and in one year I paid that off and we were clear again. Later, I sold the land and bought two hundred and forty acres east of Cordell. I later sold that and bought four hundred acres in the eastern side of the county. I then traded two hundred acres of that for land adjoining Cordell on the northwest and built a nice home on it. We still have that and the two hundred acres in the east side of the county. We later bought a small home in Cordell, a county seat town, and we are living in it at the present time. We have done without a good many things that we would have liked to have had because we did not have the money to pay for them. Our motto was to keep out of debt, and at the age of sixty-seven, we both enjoy very good health.

Now after thirty-eight years one can look back and see many changes. There were no bridges here at that time. My neighbor and I got the lumber to build two of the first bridges by donating our labor. There are not many people here now that were here thirty-eight years ago, and fewer who own their land. Citizenship here is good. The bad characters of the early days have long since gone. Some of our first schools were taught in dugouts, but those conditions have long since gone, too. We have modern schools, churches, good roads, and many good things that have a tendency to make happy, contented people.

The first lumber was freighted from Sugden, one hundred and seventy miles. The first cotton was hauled about the same distance. Even in '98 and '99 we hauled our coal from Mountain View and Weatherford, twenty-eight to thirty-two miles. Still a lot of people look back over these many years and call them the good old days. We who are now called the old timers have brought this grand old country where it is and we will pretty soon have to leave it to the later generations to carry on.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Submitted by Karen Clark <kclark969@aol.com> 06-2000.