And it's just that way, you see, and strong men
shall bow themselves, and this and that,
and this and that, and this
they came on the other day whom some
information about
someone or gritted like me that knew something
about when Oklahoma became
stayed well I remembered quite well 19 and 7
And we were out, we were getting ready to move
to Greer County in November, and we was out
getting a cup of cotton.
And the gin whistles were blowing, and we
didn't know what it was all about, no
telephones, and no daily newspapers like we
have now.
Well, a Fella came along, Ben, to the gin with
a deal of cotton, so we said, what's all those
whistles are blowing for?
Oh, he says, Paul says, the banks opened today.
Well, they did, but also Oklahoma became a state.
But they were more interested, most people on
the banks, it was called a panic of the 1970s.
And the banks opened that day, same day as,
that had something to do with the date.
But anyway, he says, yep, yep, the banks opened
today, and I remember just as well as yesterday.
And then he started, well, yeah, see, that's
when Oklahoma became a state today, you know,
in the territory, in Oklahoma territory.
Now that was, the main concern was the banks
opening, but that's when we moved to Greer County.
Were you in Greer County when that happened?
No, I was down in Johnson County when that happened.
What, Tishomingo?
Yeah, that's close to Tishomingo, there's a
town in Mill Creek near there, and that's close
to Tishomingo.
And that's, when I was born over East of
Duncan, a little locality called Velma, near
Velma, and that's...
When is your birthday?
December the 19th, I was 84 my last birthday,
and I was born there.
And then we moved over to Sulphur, to the old
Low Ranch Ranch there, and my youngest brother
was born there,
and I've been back there a time or two, and I
located the place where he was born there, and
took him with me.
But then, this Low Ranch Ranch, they had a
fine, fine spring of water in the country there,
and the old Mount Low Ranch is a big home, it's
always entertaining groups there, come along,
and it's always welcome to stay.
And right out south of it was a, below the
timber on the hill, was a lake, Low Ranch.
And that, we'd go down there and gather
watercress, and ed, and kill what we called mud hens.
But, anyway, after we lived there a while, we
moved over to Mill Creek, and that's where we
lived in 19...
I'd say that was about 1903 we moved over there.
Did you know any Dillinghams at Mill Creek? Dillingham?
No, I hadn't been back there to know anyone,
only a few old-timers, years ago, I used to go
back and visit.
I missed the visit to the old cemeteries where
some of our folks were buried.
But then, by the time we got out to Greer
County, the saloons were all closed.
Oh, is this one thing to remember?
Most of the time, you ask to talk about an
early-day town here, they had 14 saloons,
either 13 or 14.
No less, no more, no less. It was always that.
You'll find, you'll hear it all through,
there's that many.
And it'll almost show you where they were, some
of the old-timers.
Why come so many saloons?
Well, you know, in the early days of the
cowboys, they were people coming and going,
and in the West, they had more saloons.
They used to have an open saloon.
Then after seven, they couldn't have an open saloon.
But anyway, they'll always tell you, maybe
there were seven or eight there, but they'll
always remember it as 13 or 14.
They'll say that.
They've got a habit of it.
You know, was there many or not?
They'll say that.
And I know there were, now there's about two or
three in the old town where we were, in Greer
County, there wasn't any.
But that's, my remembrance of saloons was not a
very nice thing to remember.
They were pretty rough.
I saw two or three people shot out on the streets.
And they'd come out, one fell out, just a boy,
they'd let us look in there, and he got shot,
and his gallows were suspended, hung on a nail,
and he wasn't hanging there.
Was that Mill Creek?
Yeah, it was Mill Creek.
But I never want to see any of those open
saloons anymore.
What caused the panic of 1907?
I'm sorry.
I imagine that I could dig into some Oklahoma history.
I have a few Oklahoma history books, some of
them textbooks I kept, and then I have some,
but I never have, don't remember a reason about it.
How bad was that?
What happened?
Well, I don't know if the banks were closed,
and I don't know for how long,
but I guess to get readjusted or reorganizing,
just like any bank that they see might fail,
and sometimes they can keep it from failing by
closing and reorganizing,
just like the one we had here not long ago.
And they straightened out now, and they put
more capital into it,
and I think it's gone everywhere.
But I don't know what caused that, but that was 1907.
Well, those days we mostly did a lot of trading
and raised all our stuff to eat and stuff like that
and didn't do a lot of banking like people do
these days.
So it didn't worry us any.
In fact, we hadn't thought about that for any
number of years.
Who was your father?
Jim Christie, his name was.
Where was he from?
Well, he was from Texas.
His side of the house, they came from Indiana,
and I found that out when he was 12, his father.
He was in Texas long enough to be of age at the
time of the Civil War,
and he invested in the Cavalry,
and they had to go to Fort Washita, they called
it, somewhere down north of Texas.
And anyway, he was...
Was this your father?
No, my grandfather.
Your grandfather.
And I didn't know him personally.
He passed away before I was born.
He passed away in the 30s.
But I've been to...
I found out who his officers were and the
outfits he was in,
and then I kept reading him from there.
We have a library at college that has the
official records of the rebellion in there,
both sides, you see.
You can find out anything you want to in there,
but it's not just fiction that's in there, it's facts.
And I always depend on that more.
Sometime I'll read, and they'll mention there
the sources from those official records.
Anyhow, I found out in Texas and Arkansas,
and not Texas, but Louisiana and Arkansas,
several in up in Missouri where he had, they
call it, 22nd Texas Cavalry,
and they was in a walker's division,
and they call them the Greyhound, Walker's Greyhound,
because they moved so fast and that sort of thing.
And then they fought up in Newtonia, Missouri,
and I had some correspondence with an old
fellow years ago that was in his outfit,
and he'd get pretty old then from being in Texas,
and he knew him personally.
Then he came on down to the Battle of Prairie Grove,
and there was 25,000 men there on both sides,
and 15 on one side and 10 on the other.
I've been there, and then I've been to other
little places,
but it was Cumberland and Louisiana.
Well, their first major battle in there was Mansfield,
Battle of Mansfield up in the northern part of Louisiana.
Then they won there from the banks.
That was, he was still in the walker's division,
and then, I forget what, it was Captain
Stevens, right?
But anyway, they won that battle from the banks,
and he came up the Red River Expedition.
He came up there to try to go on over and
capture Texas.
Well, they got that far, and they got whipped there,
and almost up to, oh, I can't remember,
Natchitoches or something along there.
But anyhow, Mansfield, and then a few days later,
they retired, banked it back,
and then they whipped them again at Pleasant Hill.
But I have all that history of my grandfather's outfit.
So then, it's kind of a coincidence,
I've got my grandfather's cross on my mother's side.
He was about the same age,
and he was under McGruder's army there.
In fact, he'd been with Sibley's army out in
New Mexico.
Now, some people don't realize that they had
quite a bit
of the Civil War out there in New Mexico,
but we got whipped out there.
I say we, not the Confederates.
And then they, and Sibley, he was,
well, they just practically, he was quite a drunkard.
And so they took his command away from him,
and they put him under McGruder when he got
back to Texas.
They had to retire from there.
And then he got in McGruder's army,
and he went over on the coast and up to the same,
in Louisiana where my other grandfather,
and they fought at Mansfield in Louisiana.
They both were in the same battles,
but in different divisions.
But I visited a lot of those battlefields.
And, oh, I could tell you a lot of things that
I know about
and I've read about, and I have history about it.
I have one book, Texas and the Confederates.
It gives me a lot of flow down on the different outfits
and on January the 1st in 63,
the Federals had charge of they'd captured Galveston.
And, but the McGruders,
some of his outfits, captured, recaptured Galveston.
And in doing that, they floated down the bayou
from up around Pasadena, it is now, Houston.
And the two, the Bayou City and the Neptune
were two river boats.
And they were in the Calvary,
but they floated and they were attached,
and they had bales of cotton all around to
protect them,
and they were small boats.
And they recaptured the Harriet Lane,
which was the flagship of the Federal, or the
Union Navy.
And that was the first time in history
that a Calvary unit captured a Navy vessel.
And the Harriet Lane was the first man-of-war
named for a woman.
And they took part in the capture,
where is it over at,
oh, Charleston, what is it?
What, Fort Sumter? Yeah.
And I have some history that says it fired the
first shot,
but now I wouldn't be impulsive about that.
But anyhow, that was named for a woman,
it was on the 1st of January, that was number one,
and the first Calvary unit to capture a Navy vessel.
And there's several firsts connected with that.
But they went aboard at night
and just captured it in a hand-to-hand fight,
and he told me about that.
I didn't get that from history,
didn't take enough pointers I should have from them.
But anyway, that's after the Civil War.
From there back, I don't know about a little,
my grandfather, Chris, as I say, came from Indiana.
I think he was born there.
And my grandfather Cross came from,
originally born in Vermont,
and came to New York and up to the Air Canal country
and when he was just a little,
raised around close to Springfield in Illinois
until he was 12 years old and went to Texas.
But they lived on a farm there
and they had a large home, they had a big family,
and they had a large home there
and people would come along,
they were on what they called a turnpike,
and people would stay all night there
and eat with them sometimes.
And he said a number of times that Abraham Lincoln
had stayed all night with them
and said the ways that history tells you,
he was a great story writer.
But then they'd listen and the old folks would say,
now children, it's time to go to bed.
Well, we went upstairs,
but we might have gotten ready for bed.
We slipped back down to the foot of the stairs
and the parlor was across the hall
and they couldn't see us.
We sat there and listened to them talk.
I think the old folks knew we were there,
but of course his proper friends would go to
bed early.
And he'd tell stories.
He said, oh, he was a great story teller.
Well, we knew all that,
so I kind of bragged that I shook the hand
that shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln.
Like in the old days,
John L. Sullivan,
that great prizefighter, heavyweight,
for years,
they'd say, you're shaking the hand
that shook the hand of John L. Sullivan, Sir.
It was a great honor, you know,
so I felt that way.
But then, my grandfather,
great-grandfather, who was Illinois,
he was with an Illinois outfit
in the battle, in the war,
46 along there with Mexico.
And he came with that outfit
and he was captured by the Mexicans
and was prisoner for two or three years.
And when the war was over, they turned him loose.
Well, in coming down there,
they went through Texas
and there were just a few settlers there.
And he liked the looks of that country,
new country.
And then when he came back,
they turned him loose
while they came back through there.
And so he decided to move there.
And he did.
And that was along,
well, somewhere in the,
probably in the 48 or 50s.
What was his name, your great-grandfather?
The old grandfather was Jacob Cross.
And his son in Riley,
or we called it Riley,
not Riley, but Riley Cross.
And they settled in that area
and around the coast of Wentworth, Texas
up the head of Long Creek,
Mother always told me.
And then the family grew up there.
And then when,
just before the war,
my grandfather was around 20, 21,
and he was married.
And Mother was, I think, the oldest child.
But anyhow, she remembers quite well
when the day that he was back on a furlough
and one of his cousins said
he was on a furlough
and he has to go back.
The next day he was.
And he came in and said,
woke him up, he's taken out.
He said, Riley, old boy,
you don't have to go back.
It's all over.
And he said, talk about rejoicing.
There was a lot of it.
And so then he married,
later on married my grandmother
and her name was Rebecca Baker.
And so then they lived there.
Mother and all of her family
was born around the coast of Jacksonburg, Texas.
And Daddy's folks,
they come in around Greenville
or Dallas first.
And my daddy had a great-uncle
that owned 160,
you can hear these stories,
but I've heard it from other sources too.
He owned a quartz section land
right in the heart of Dallas, Texas.
And it was just a village like then,
all the way back in those days.
But they decided they'd move over
close to Greenville.
And that's where they used to say
the blackest land and the whitest people.
But they took that sign down.
And so they have,
he sold his land there
and moved over
and sold it to a better farming community.
And then Daddy was born over there.
And then Mother, of course,
she was born there in Parker County.
But then eventually they,
Mother's folks moved up
just a little further around,
not too far from Jacksonburg.
And then Daddy,
when he became oh, about 16,
he wanted to go on to Texas Ranger.
He thought that would just be
really some adventure,
like a young man will.
And now it's like a highway patrol
or something, it won't be that many.
But anyway, he was around San Saba
and he was under Captain Bill McDonald,
the most famous old Texas Ranger.
Not because he hadn't been my daddy,
he didn't come to be.
But everybody in history tells that.
And I have his history by A.B. Payne,
his book,
and then I have a lot of magazines
over West End,
and then I have in Texas history,
I have a lot about Captain Bill McDonald.
But anyway, he was on a mission
from San Saba coming up
towards Wichita Falls,
and then going on up to, I think,
maybe Amarillo.
And I think he came by Fort Worth.
But anyway, a fellow he was with,
he called Sid Jordan,
and Jordan he said,
but his name was Jordan,
and he was a pal,
and he wasn't in the Ranger.
And he was making a trip with him
just to visit some folks around
Antelope, Texas,
that's close to Jacksonburg.
And Dad was a foot racer,
and he won all,
just over and over.
He just never wasn't beating,
they claimed his feet
was only beating one time
he knew of in East Texas.
And so he had a picnic,
and he'd always stop,
and if there was any foot racers
he'd enter, you know.
They'd pay a little something for them.
Well, he'd run against horses
and mules, anything.
This day was a race meet,
what they called it,
called them,
but it was real fast,
you know, hard to beat.
So this friend of his
had his horse, his saddle,
his gun, hat,
everything he had,
boots on,
and Dad had won in that race.
And he said if he'd have lost,
if he'd have lost,
and Dad said we'd have both
had to road back to,
double horseback,
back to San Salvador, Texas,
several, several counties
between there.
But he won the race,
and he won all that.
And he met my mother then.
My mother was a widow,
little old lady.
She had,
her husband died
in the state of Washington.
She had five children,
but she was older than my daddy,
about ten years or more.
But they fell in love right then,
at first sight, in a way.
And so,
then when he came back through,
he stopped in Syria again.
And then,
oh, they got pretty sweet
on each other,
and finally she said,
well, he would,
she would marry him
if he would resign
from Texas Rangers.
It was too dangerous,
dangerous, you know.
And she'd have,
he'd have to be away
from home a lot.
And he said he would.
So he went on back
to San Salvador
with that intention
to resign him.
And he,
I have some letters
in daddy's old,
and mother's old trunk.
And I didn't know
they were there
until I looked
through the old trunk.
And, oh, some of them
were long,
pretty long letters.
Some of them
pretty syrupy, too.
And they,
so anyhow, he said,
I'm resigning
from the Texas Rangers Force.
And he said,
I've got one more mission.
And he said,
I'm up in this old
several counties away.
And it took him
about two weeks.
Well, then about two weeks
there's another letter
that says,
I returned from mission.
I captured my man
and turned him over
to the sheriff
of a certain county
down there.
I forget what it was now.
But anyhow,
Comanche County,
everybody was.
And he said,
now I resigned
from the Rangers Force yesterday.
And I'm getting ready.
I'm returning up
to this county
where it was,
Jack County.
And he says,
be horseback
because I'll have to stop
and clean up
once in a while.
It'll take a little while
to travel up that far.
And he says,
I hope you haven't
changed your mind
when I get there.
But they married.
And that was in 97.
And then they moved up
to Indian Territory.
And that was where
I was born.
But he had
a rather strenuous life.
And his father died
when he was young.
And he worked out
in San Sapo
on a ranch
for years.
When he was just a boy,
15, 16.
And then after that,
that's where he became
interested in the Texas Rangers,
San Sapo.
And I have a lot of history
of the Rangers Force.
What were some of the most
interesting cases
he worked on?
Well, I don't know.
He told me quite about it.
He never talked much about it.
They didn't.
It was something
he just kind of
won't forget about it.
And one,
I can tell you this.
And I have a story
in this book
of Captain Bill McDonald.
And I loaned it
and several other books
in the Navy.
I was in the Navy
World War I.
And I loaned several books
pertaining to the Navy
to some kinfolks.
Never loan books
to Kinfolks
because they'll lose them
for you and think
nothing of it.
Don't worry about it at all.
And so I lost
three fine books
by loaning them to Kinfolks.
And finally was able
to get them back
to a used book company.
And I finally got this
Texas Ranger book back
just about six months ago
from California.
My daughter out there
got it for me.
But anyway,
it tells me there
about this commission
or mission rather.
He was with the force
and they were up around
Wichita Falls
in Electra
along in there.
And Bill was living
in Electra, Texas then.
And father was with them.
And they were stationed
in Bobby Wichita Falls
or Fort Worth.
And they came out
and they were assigned
to go up into
the Indian Territory
which was part of
around Frederick.
That was part of
Bexar County then.
And out east of Frederick
was what they called
a big pasture country.
Joe Beckham out
in I believe it was
Mobley County.
Texas was a sheriff
out there.
But he had to
in his work there
he had to shoot a man
or did if it was necessary.
And he had to kill a man.
Well this fellow's
relatives took it up
and they made it
so hard for him
that he left
that part of the country
and he finally,
Joe Beckham,
he finally became
an outlaw.
And they were going
to try to capture him.
They knew,
they had heard
that he was up in this.
A lot of them,
you know,
they run off
and go to
Indian Territory
and places like that.
And so,
like they did there
in that Grover County.
And so,
he assigned his nephew,
and I don't remember
the nephew's name,
and another fellow
and then my daddy.
There was three
to go up there
and try to capture
Joe Beckham. Well,
old Bill had been
shot up in there
in an engagement
and he hadn't
recovered yet
and he couldn't
make the trip himself
so they sent them.
It was the winter time,
bad weather,
snowy weather. Anyway,
when they got
almost up
in that part of the country,
they passed a little
store there
and they got
some supplies
and they
could locate
the place
where he was
probably holed up
in an old
half dugout. Well,
they finally
found out
that he was there
but saw a horse
or something,
they recognized that
maybe or had been
told about it.
And so,
he was by himself then.
Old Red Buck,
an old outlaw
in western Oklahoma
in the early days, he,
Red Buck was one
that was with him
a while,
but they had left
and come back
to Oklahoma.
And so,
there's quite a lot
of shots exchanged there
and finally
it got so cold
and all
and they run out
of supplies
so he sent
these fellas
to see how he was doing,
two of them, yeah,
and back
and one fella
stayed there
and sent Dad and us
back to a little
store there
to buy supplies. Well,
Dad had the horse
shot out from under him
there in that game.
It tells in here
about the horse
being shot out
from under him
in this book.
And one said,
I read a story
where there was two
but he just mentioned
the one
so that was
the nearest he ever
got killed.
But anyway,
when they came back, well,
they said,
those fellas
left there said,
I don't know. Well,
what's happened? Well,
they said,
somebody went on
three different
positions around him
and approached
just a little time
and he could still
couldn't hear any shots
and so when they
reached the dugout
he had been killed
but they don't know
whether it was
about the time
they left
and it could have
been some of them
or it could have
been this man
and he doesn't know
but anyhow,
that was
his real toughest engagement.
But these commissions,
a lot of time
they'd go in,
they had authority to,
all over Texas
to enter the
counties and
they had more
higher authority
than the county
officers would
and sometimes
the county officers
would be a
member of a gang
and they would be
guilty of a lot
of wrongdoing
and they'd,
they would sometime
arrest the county officials
and sometimes
they'd come in
and said,
I one time
I hired out
as a dishwasher
and I finally found
and said
when we did
we'd arrest
the man
and take him
on in
maybe the county
arrest him
he'd be in
he'd be
in jail
he'd be
in jail
he'd be
in jail
he'd be
in jail
he'd be
in jail
he'd be
in jail
he'd be
in jail
he'd be
in jail
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in jail
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And I remember they could do that, especially,
and they took the last flag flown over to
Yorktown, and I have a piece about six or eight
inches square, part of the flag, and they gave
each member a part of that flag.
And then we transferred the submarine, and we
went over to the South Pacific there, and Mara
had to go harbor a long time, you know, before they...
And we, in fact, had established a...I say we,
because we were out there getting a ship to a
submarine base there for a harbor.
And then the next ship I was on was a...well,
in the meantime, I was on through the other
ship, but that meant I was only about a ship in
New York.
I had a sister ship to Texas, and I was on that
when it was discharged, and then I got to visit
the old Texas down in Pasadena, you know.
And I'll tell you, when you walked aboard there
before you did, when I saw the New York, I
thought that was the biggest...well, it was the
largest ship I'd seen at that time.
And I thought it was a big thing, but it was a
big city on that. I didn't like it. It was too big.
But anyway, I went aboard the Texas, and it
just seemed like I was on the old New York.
I think about the things that happened, you
know, and just where it happened, it just...I
didn't feel like it.
What were some of the things that happened to
you in the Navy on board ships?
Oh, not enough things that would make any story
at all.
Just the usual routine of Navy things that happened.
It was all a different world than it was, you know.
My first on the New York town, it was just...I...
When I first went aboard, it just got too cold
in the ship, and it was rough, and the old boys
would stand around.
I learned before that it looked like a bunch of pirates.
And I thought, my gosh, I did come to this.
But before we...it was on our server once, and
I liked the ship.
I just thought it was just grand. I liked it.
But then it was put out in 1918, and sold as a
scrap, you know.
I know I wrote to the Navy Department, and they
told me all about it.
And the size of it and all, and the dimensions,
and I made a little...
I started one, never did finish it.
Well, it fell off the shelf.
I started a chip model of it, but I never did
really complete it.
It fell off the shelf, and I never did pick it
up again and finish it.
But then I was with my brother all the time,
and there were five or six of us together.
We called ourselves the Walsh Battalion.
And by the time we left boot camp, we got...the
ship was always together,
and then we was transferred about six or eight
times to some other ship in these submarines,
and we six stayed together all the time.
And I have a picture of the group of six, and
now I'm the only one left of the six.
Were you all from Greer County?
No, one of them was from Texas, and then the
rest of us was from Greer County.
And the boy from Texas, he was a
fortunate-looking kid,
and he was from down close to Brownwood,
Brownwood, Texas.
And I'd had some folks that lived there.
He was a place called...somewhere down close to
Indian Gap, and there was his team.
Then I knew he was a taller boy, and we got
over on the island,
so I always had pretty good luck in track,
especially 100-yard, 220-yard dashes.
And the folks from Greer County knew I did, and
this boy was State...
just a year before, he was State Chancellor of
the State of Texas
in a high school track meet on a 100-yard dash.
And he had some clippings to tell about it all.
Well, they matched the race between me and him
out one Sunday on Magazine Island.
It was out on a little road in between the
warehouses there, a dirt road.
They bet money on it, and the people that knew
of him, they bet on him,
and a lot of the folks there bet on me.
Well, I talked him out of running out, so let's
go run a 100 yards.
That's too...we haven't done any of that in
quite a while,
and let's just make it 75 yards.
I knew that I might have a chance with him
because I won most of my races on the start.
You know, I got a head start in State.
Well, yes, I'll be all right, and I did.
I got, as usual, I got a head start, and I beat
him just about a foot.
And he didn't deny that, but he couldn't hardly
believe it.
And they had a judge there, and I'd take, you
know, our thing, and down that road.
Well, he said, Oh, I don't want to run you again.
And I said, Never, never again.
I said, I'm going to leave it just like it is.
I beat the champion of the state of Texas, and
I said, I'm going to keep it that way.
And he tried to run me again. I wouldn't do it.
And 35 years later, after he came home, I
visited with him at the West of Cleveland,
and he had been teaching school right then, and
he was on a vacation.
Anyway, he wasn't expecting to see me, but I
knew I was supposed to meet Mr. Sir,
and she told me that, yes, he was still there.
Well, I thought he might. I thought he was
going to make a trip for nothing.
He might have moved for some reason, but he
lived there a long time.
So, anyway, she pointed out the house where my
son and I were walking down there,
and he came out on the porch.
To me, I was expecting him, and he just looked
like he was always there,
but we had been kicked at that time, I guess.
And, anyway, I introduced myself as Tom Jones,
and my son, Charlie, or something more,
and he wrapped me up.
And we heard that he was interested in buying
some ranch land, and he said,
Holy Lord, he didn't know it.
He said, I've got more land. I have 288 acres.
I said, I haven't had a crop in three years.
We'll buy a few sheep.
No, no, we didn't have any sheep to sell, but a
lot of times he didn't recognize me.
He didn't recognize me.
My son was pulling my coat tail, and I said, we
understand if you want to buy some land.
Meanwhile, I couldn't buy anything.
We spoke about the land being good, sprained
ranch there,
and planted timber and fine stock land for
grazing and all.
Oh, he wasn't interested.
And I said, well, I turned to my son.
I said, son, it looks like we made a water hole.
I said, now, he's over here.
I said, it looks like he's trying to back out.
And he said, well, he cussed a little.
He said, back out.
I said, well, I'm not backing out.
I've never had any idea of buying any more land.
And I told him, you're getting a little bit
sore about it.
And my son was pulling my coat tail at the top
of her trip tail,
and he was going to get tickled and got the sore.
And then I said, well, it was all the way over
here from that county to save you this land.
And then he moved back down.
Oh, no, no, no.
Then I said, well, there's another fellow named Walter.
And I said, you know what he said?
He said, he was interested.
You know any Walters in this county?
He said, no, no, I don't.
And he began to think about the Walter we did
know in the Navy, Oscar Walter.
We called him Puss.
And I said, well, there's a fellow named Walter
at my mansion.
And I said, did you, this fellow is cold.
They call him Puss Walter.
Oh, Gosh.
And he thought about this a while.
And he grabbed me, or Barney Christie, around
and around.
And we went and, well, I think we cried.
It just, we were just too.
But it was, we just, you know, we were just
happy about it.
And he said, all right, I'll escort you on that
100-yard day.
He said, that's the first thing you told me.
He said, yeah, have you read enough?
I said, no, no, no.
And I said, not again.
You know that.
I told you I never would.
And it had been 35 years, and I'm not mad.
And his mother came out on the porch.
She heard us talking about this foot race and said,
Oster's got some gold medals there in his trunk.
And he won it at Austin.
And I said, I know all about those gold medals.
And so, you know, I said, I know about them.
I read about them.
But we never would run that race again.
But, of course, after the war, we came home.
And then just the usual life like it is.
What did you do on Armistice Day, 1918?
We were on some garden somewhere.
It seemed like the San Diego or something.
Then we got back to the station.
At the station, they had a big parade there,
you know.
And then we thought we might get to come home.
But then we went up and put this York.
We went aboard this Yorktown before that.
Then we went up to this Golden Garden.
Then we went up to Maryland and stayed on the
Yorktown a while
before we transferred the submarine.
But I didn't have a very adventurous life in
the Navy.
I experienced a lot of it.
I wouldn't take for it.
But I always say, well, I just went down and
seen the ships
and saw the world through a porthole.
You know, they say, go in the Navy and see the world.
Well, you see the world through a porthole.
Except when I was on the submarine, I didn't
because it wasn't even there.
Did you see any German U-boats?
No, no.
We thought one time that we did.
And they got the orders to report to the
station and everything.
And there was a floating box, just a box.
And they fired into it and hit it and just
scattered it everywhere.
But that's the nearest we were.
We didn't have much of that.
And I always tell them, talk to somebody that
maybe was up in the trenches
or something like that or maybe had some experience.
Now, I could get to that.
But both my sons were in the Navy then in World
War II.
One of them probably just taking pharmacy.
And my brother, his son went to the Navy too.
And he enlisted in the Navy.
And he couldn't pass a test of pharmacy in the
Navy yet, so he enlisted in it
and took training as a machinist.
And then you followed that until he got out and
he'd come back and teach you pharmacy.
But he had some interest in it.
He was on the old Hornet when it was starting
to carry it, you know,
in the Battle of Santa Cruz, October of 26 and 42.
And he saw some real interesting things there.
And not too nice either.
There was 129 killed on the ship that day and
three or four right in his compartment where he was.
And then they assembled a new Caledonian and
finally got on another carrier.
But he was in the water several hours.
And the sharks were biting at him from
underneath his jet
until shooting at him from overhead.
And finally he got on a raft and then on a boat.
And just a little thing had happened before he
got on this raft.
He just had his dungarees and a life jacket.
That was all, everything else.
They shut everything up watertight.
He wanted to go back and get his little
testament I'd given him there.
I said, that carried me up to Manhattan to
service him.
And he carried all through the war that part of
his little testament.
He wanted to go back and have a service.
And he thought of all things.
And they offered his guard, no, you can't go
back, son.
He said, those doors could be closed any time.
You'd be there the rest of your life.
I said, there wouldn't be any opening.
And then he got transferred to some other ships.
And my other son was, he was in the highest crew.
And he was ship's cook maybe on one or two
different ships.
But my experience wasn't as much as his.
It wasn't some word.
Did you know Dr. Stovall at University?
What was he like?
Oh, to me, I thought he was one of the nicest men.
I knew all his family down in Granite.
And the old way, he and his father, well, it
wasn't MD.
His father was a doctor.
And I'd heard him talk.
I don't remember meeting his father.
And they finally got married and scattered.
And he had some sisters there.
And they married different.
I forget now what Dr. Lowe's sisters did.
And they were some people farmed.
Some of them made teachers later on.
And he came here one time and made a talk.
When I first moved to Weatherford.
And, of course, I went up and listened to it.
And then that Joe Ryan abused myself.
And, oh, I will say, that was something.
And I'll tell you about his folks there and all.
Harris Stovall, I think he got killed in World
War I.
And he, I think he went to West Portland some
of the time.
He made an officer.
And Harry came through there at times, too.
And I didn't know him until he was grown and a
very smart old boy.
And one time he carried a message or something.
He hiked from, it seemed like, this is nothing
to talk about.
From there to New Mexico and carried a message
from one governor to the other.
He's always doing something different.
But, anyway, then he says, we're talking about
exploring these campsites.
And I, for all that granted, I've been to
several campsites.
And I just thought I'd read about it.
And a few of them had the experience.
Were these Indian sites?
Yeah, Indian campsites.
And so, and, of course, he's talking about here
is a dinosaur.
And, you know what, these are stuff you could
talk about in a museum like that.
And so then he said, and he's talking about you
had a permission to dig.
And a lot of them didn't have it.
And they dug in a hound.
They spoiled things.
I wouldn't, I didn't like to want to dig in the
first place.
And I sure wouldn't.
Didn't want to get in there and maybe destroy
something that was quite a connecting link
between the, you know all about those things.
And I was afraid that I wouldn't dig.
But he said, now, any time you want to dig,
you, he says, you have a permit.
He said, it's just a verbal permit.
If anybody questions you, just tell them to
call Doc Stovall.
And I thought that was nice of him.
And it was so interesting to hear him talk.
I thought.
And then later, just a little after that, they
had a WPA project here.
And that was on history, ancient artifacts, and
dinosaurs and all those things.
And this boy, they called him Doc.
Oh, he might go to jail.
But he had a permit, of course, to dig and all.
And he wasn't Doc.
Didn't have a degree.
They just called him Doc.
But he went up and took a little training in that.
And after he knew somebody.
And I'd go out with him.
I wasn't on WPA.
But I was interested.
And we'd go out here in this county.
And he'd make inquiries around.
And one time, we went out with some other
teachers up there.
We shouldn't have done it at that time.
And we had three or four with us and two teachers.
Nice little boys.
One of them was kind of a principal up there.
And another one, I forget their name.
Well, I do, but I'm not making a point of it.
I'm going to catch my reflection on that.
And we located the place.
And the old boy wasn't interested really.
He had as a lot of collection as he could.
And he was going to give them to us.
Bring them back to our museum we had here.
And these teachers wouldn't let us take them.
Well, they were kind of under the school
and a little bit under the college and high
school lot.
And they had authority, I guess.
They spoke like they did.
And so we had to give them the artifacts up.
We couldn't bring them back with us.
And then that started us.
And I was in the lunchroom for 21 years on the highway.
And people would come in, they'd see some
tomahawks hanging.
And we had some handles put on some down at the farm
where I lived after.
I was on the outside of the walls.
I wasn't inside.
But I had a friend who worked there.
And they had a tannery there.
And we'd put rawhide handles on those
Tomahawks, you know,
and so-called tomahawks, matches and so matches.
And we had all that stuff.
And then I was getting to gather it up.
And then I had it in that museum.
And kids would come into my orchard
and they'd see someone hanging up there.
And then they'd say, my granddad.
But maybe they'd be students.
They found something out on the history of
where he lived.
Oh, three miles west of Cheyenne or someplace like.
And what's his name?
And we'd take it down and take pointers on it
and information.
Then we'd get changed.
We'd go out and look.
And it's a pretty good way to find out about things.
The students in college, they'd trade with me a
lot of them.
And so then we'd go out and look up these campsites.
And the dinosaur stuff I had, like those teeth,
Mastodon teeth, you know.
And those, you know, Mastodon and not Mastodon,
mammoth, they're different, you know.
As I remember, they want to read about it.
They come out more in a cone shape, like, you know.
Not all flat, more like a horse or two, like I
have out there.
But then maybe we'd find something on the surface.
And I like to hunt on the surface.
I wouldn't like digging camp.
So anyway, we'd dig once in a while.
And we went out here west of Stafford out in
this county.
Well, I have southwest of there on the, you
call it the,
I believe the Goodman campsites, or the McKinley's,
some people hear me, Leonardson.
But anyway, we went out there.
And they reported some mounds, you know,
and you'd just be up about that high above the ground.
But you'd lay down and you'd just see them over there
in a little bend of a little creek.
It was just about, it was dry then.
But there had been a freshwater creek.
And you'd see about a dozen of those.
So he dug in one or two of those.
And we just found some charred timbers and stuff,
and no artifacts in there.
But we did find quite a lot of artifacts on the
surface that day.
And we brought them home, and I kept some of them
and put them in the museum when they went out.
They finally disbanded while I brought my stuff home.
But anyway, about a year after that,
here come in the old, what did they call it,
like it is orbit now, they call it something else.
And pictures and all about the OU,
the Department of the College of Oil and Stuff.
They had, Doug went out and looked that over,
and they found that, and oh, a big write-up
and pictures of it and what they found.
Didn't find very much.
And at first, they didn't think anybody else
would have looked at it, I guess.
And we found more on the surface that day,
a year later, and we just left it like that.
And they found that whole day out there.
It just wasn't terribly worth looking at.
But that got us started, and then I go back to Granite.
I was scoutmaster for seven years back before that.
And the boys would find things and bring them
to me
and tell me about it, and we'd go out and look.
And that was just a few years before I moved up here.
And then, ever since I've been here,
I've been going out now and then.
Still just a layman, but I don't claim to know
a lot,
but on just what you experience, you know,
that's all.
And you get, as you know, like those bulletins
and information you get, and I don't mind
asking questions.
And you get a lot out of that.
But I think I've visited about 50 campsites up
and down,
and some down around Granite,
and a few over west of Clinton,
and a few back and around Binger.
And, you know, you can, they'll say,
my granddad found out a clown one day,
and he found this and that, and I knew right then.
I said, well, was there any pieces of pottery there?
That's usually, you know, in this country,
all the pottery pieces, nothing intact.
But was there a piece of flint there?
Yes, it looked like there did,
and then we found some iron hand there.
And then maybe they'd moved and forgot all
about it,
but then we'd go looking, and maybe somebody
hadn't looked at it.
We'd found quite a lot of stuff.
Johnny Morris here is about the best on,
sorry, on arrowheads, and he keeps track of the,
where they were found and all that,
and he'd register me, and I'll make a list of them.
And I don't, I can tell you where I found most
of them.
But at the same time, that got me started,
and it just, from there,
I don't get out as often as I used to,
but it's good exercise, and a real fine crust
to lean on
as you get older.
You can get exercise and still not be
strenuous, you know.
If you don't want to get tired, you can go home.
And I'd like sometime for you to meet Johnny.
He's got some fine cases up home.
He's got them in...
In what did they?
Johnny Morris.
And he's up here on West Main Street
at this place, a repair shop up there.
And back then, this boy had his taxidermist there,
and he worked for him.
Now, he's more or less retired from work.
He had a little heart trouble,
but he has some beautiful stuff.
Then here not long ago,
this little boy came up in the panhandle.
I can't think of his name.
You probably know,
and he's right up in this building there once
in a while,
and he had a bunch of stuff in his car,
and he brought it and showed it,
and he looked at some stuff I had,
and I had a few things that he didn't have,
and then he went out to Johnny,
and he had a whole bunch of arrowheads,
and most of his stuff up there around there
in the panhandle of Texas, you know.
And right out in that dry country, you know,
and a lot of his sand, you know,
found it where it was blowed off of,
and some things that you never see in this country.
If that's what it is,
you'll see it in locations.
Now, out here, most of them are like our points,
our Warshataw points,
and it's similar to that, you know,
and they are small, beautiful work.
I have some beautiful points.
He has some handy.
But then maybe they won't be in eastern Oklahoma.
The people that have some over there
are kind of gray and not as pretty work
as these out here up and down these rivers,
and they're all, they tell us that they're
about the same.
They're used about the same age, you know,
about 650, 800 years go along in that,
and because they all just about look just alike,
you know, almost, and same type.
It's just fascinating, and just like you catch a,
of course, you know about this,
but you catch a good fish somewhere,
you'll go back there again sometime
and hope you can catch another.
So you find a pretty area here,
or those cells, I found two or three out here,
and they're not found very often,
they're black and red.
You know what they, that kind of material they are?
I never have found that for sure,
just what they are.
You know what I mean, don't you?
They're black, as slick and hard as they can be,
those cutting tools,
I always say I have cutting tools,
but I never have found,
I found two or three,
if old Johnny ever found one,
and oh, he didn't,
and I went out with one old boy that goes out
and left the campsite,
and coming on back,
and then the wrong side of the road
looked like there was one there, you know,
and he's laying just like this,
just about half of it above the ground,
and you know, it don't get black,
you handle them,
the more the blacker they get,
it seems like, it's more of a dark gray,
but it's black now,
it's black to me,
and he gets to feel, of course,
maybe like he's mad,
because I didn't break it, too,
give him half of it,
but we kind of lost it.
Did he know Dr. Tobin?
No, I'm going to say I was,
unfortunately, I didn't know him.
You know Jordan over at Elk City,
at that museum?
I talked to him there once in a while,
he was very interested in talking to me,
then there's a Jordan campsite
west of Clinton,
Clinton about four or five miles out,
close to Perth,
used to be a little old town out there,
and he has a dairy there,
a little orchard right east of the house,
and, well, some of the trees have died out,
and he, we find stuff there,
I've been out there about five years,
and it's so nice,
and he says,
just come in and help yourself,
I said, no,
you bottle it all the time,
right here in your bag,
don't think anything of it,
and I was the one,
the class that was out there,
when the food was ripe,
he'd bring a whole sack of peaches
and bang gifts to us,
and he said,
come out just any time you want to,
well, I found quite a lot,
but I don't know whether he used to come
to this other Jordan there,
at that museum or not,
but they've got some,
have you been to the museum there?
They've got some interesting,
well, they have a lot of old antiques,
old barber shops,
stuff like that,
that's very interesting,
but he has quite a lot of them,
and then out at Elk City,
at the town,
old town house,
they call it out there,
I took them out a bunch of
hammerstone points,
you know,
they exist as authentic in a campsite,
and I think probably used more than anything, nearly,
there's so many of them,
you find,
and for a long time,
people passed up,
didn't know what they were,
just thought it was another rock,
but after a while,
I see one open,
and just recognize it,
there's a hammerstone,
and think,
well, there's another rock to them,
but I gather four,
four, five hundred of those,
and I'll bring back
something to give people,
and the children,
I've had a lot of groups come,
and I've given money to those,
and still got people in there,
but now here,
I'm digressing,
getting off topic,
didn't want to talk about it at all,
but I've had a,
after my wife passed away,
they said,
oh, you know, sometimes,
actually gone,
you know,
it's never there,
I don't think about it,
but I have so many little hobbies,
to lean on,
that it helps a lot,
I'm telling you,
I think,
I used to think I had too many hobbies,
and I found out I didn't,
and you take some old folks,
oh, I wish I had some hobbies,
maybe I'll be down here to McGill's,
and drink a coffee called Smith,
that I made this morning,
with all the waiting matters,
for the community to discuss,
and the mother-in-law said,
I don't wish I had a hobby,
I said, listen,
you have hobbies,
you don't recognize,
you've got a hobby right here,
coming down here nearly every morning,
to drink coffee,
I said, well,
he said, yes,
I guess that's right,
he said,
you look forward to it,
don't you,
we have a,
I have a,
I fiddle some,
and my son,
he's twice as good a fiddler,
as I am,
in the city,
and then his daughter,
was I saying about this yesterday,
my daughter,
and she's Oklahoma State champion fiddler,
you see,
and you know,
her style,
you know,
hold down stuff, well,
she was in high school,
in Clark City,
she took lessons,
and was an orchestra there,
and then she was an orchestra here,
for two years,
and so demanding,
you know,
a lot of times,
she was becoming a fiddler,
and I mean a good one,
and so,
she moved to Texas,
and she can't compete,
as Oklahoma State champion anymore,
but she,
What's her name?
Her name was Jill Christie, then,
and she,
you know, she,
she married,
and there's,
Adam's now, but,
I got a, yesterday,
I got a,
a monthly bulletin,
from our,
fiddler's association,
and their secretary,
Georgia Williams,
she's out there,
and her husband,
is the last president of that association,
and in this, bulletin,
it comes through their office,
little note says,
I got Jews from jail the other day,
and they all knew Jill,
and all, all,
Let's see.
What was his name, the chief?
No, no, I think not.
No, it wasn't Douglas Johnston. I think he was
a chief.
Douglas Johnston?
Yeah, I think he was, wasn't he?
Johnston Murray was his, I believe he was
Johnston Murray's great-uncle or grandfather or something.
Murray came from that county, and my dad was
acquainted with old Bill Murray.
But that, and showed some pictures of him.
And I, the last time I was down there, I didn't
have time to look around,
and I was going to ask him to say if that was a
mortar that had caved off,
or if it was going to protect it, you know.
And that's not the name, doggone, why can't I,
I wouldn't know where to look it up very easy.
But he was an old chief, I heard, a chief, so.
But then there's little campsites all up and
down those creeks, so they are,
and people, whenever, they may be in pasture,
and it's been pasture where there's nothing on
the surface to find,
and someone, maybe you find a door in a fence,
they throw another rock, you know.
I find stuff around old fence rows, you know,
grain grinders.
Yeah, you ever hear of the Sequoia Convention?
Oh yeah.
Are you familiar with it?
Not very familiar with it, and you know, they
were going to try to make a, you know, Sequoia
estate, you know.
And I don't know a whole lot about it, because
I passed up reading and ignored it, you know.
Did you ever hear of Chickasaw?
Chickasaw, yeah.
Named Tishomingo.
Well, Tishomingo, yes.
That's where Murray Aggie's college is there, Tishomingo.
Was there an Indian named Tishomingo?
I think it was a chief named Tishomingo, I'm
pretty sure it is.
Know anything about it?
No, not unless I, I may have read and, you
know, kind of passed up.
And I thought, oh man, I've got books and stuff.
Pigeonholed, and every once in a while, I guess
I took down an old, wasn't a catalog, but it
was a program of an A-19-8 of a track meet statement.
And this college was in that, and a picture of
this college steamer.
Oh, they had finest looking fellows in it, you
know, and several different colors.
And I find it, and I'll just take it back, you know.
And now, there's a lot of it, I don't know
where to find this.
Did you know Bill Murray?
Yes, oh yes, yes.
We, Rankin Williams used to be our old coach here.
His father was one of the centers in Oklahoma.
And back when, and he was a member of the
convention, what do you call it?
Competition convention?
Yeah, and I think he was a member of that.
And Rankin was a, then Rankin was a page in the
house after they organized, and he was a boy.
And, and so I, I, Daddy, where we lived there
then, and old Bill, I was a long time boy there.
And Bill, he was lolly over there in Fishman.
And he'd come over there, and I guess he ate
before my dad might be arrested.
And he got pretty well acquainted.
It was a small, the community wasn't many
people in, and you knew people, more of them
than you did later on.
And then sometime he might have went over there
to be on a court or something.
And he got pretty well acquainted.
He liked old Bill.
He saw a lot of him.
And back after Bolivia, when he went to
Bolivia, you know, well, he kind of organized
down there, you know,
and then finally they lost title to their land,
and they changed the government to Azerbaijan.
And I talked to him about that later, and he
told me a good time.
I said, you hear a lot of stories, Governor
Bill, the way he called him Governor Bill.
I said, you hear a lot of stories about what,
what caused you to have to give up that, you
know, people,
several hundred people down there.
And, of course, they held him responsible for
that, but he said they changed the government,
and that way he didn't have any title, just
didn't have it.
There wasn't anybody getting out of it, just
had to come back.
Well, he'd been on one, and there's a little
talk about him running for governor.
He'd run once back about 1910 on there, you
know, and he lost that.
And Dad was always for him then.
Dad was working at the, when they first put him
in the promontory there, Dad was a,
there was a commissary steward, the second one
they had there.
Well, he lost his job because he was for Bill Murray.
He knew he didn't sell.
Oh, it was for old Bill there.
They just, you just go home.
And he said, well, it was better off without him.
Anyhow, back in the years when they talked
about him running for governor, you know.
March 3rd, 1983, this is Joe Todd.
This is an interview with Mr. Barney Christie.
Let's talk about Bill Murray.
Oh, yeah.
South American colony.
So, Dad's an old Uncle George Briggs.
An old, he'd worked in Texas for the old Burt
Burnett outfit or something.
And he was an old timer in Oklahoma.
And he was always for Bill Murray.
And he was a, I think he was a, the
Constitutive Convention.
But anyway, him, Dad, and another fellow got
together and said, listen, we hear old talk
about old Bill running for governor.
He said, let's write him, see.
So, they all went in sweaters.
Well, he knew Dad.
He just called him Jim, you know, and he knew
him that well.
And Dad wrote him a letter.
He said, why don't we, have you ever thought
about running for governor?
And, well, of course, he hadn't.
Well, he said, there's been several people.
Well, he got up there and said, several people
have asked me about that.
He said, I'm interested in the way.
He said, if I should take an oath to do that,
I'll let you know.
And he said, you boys can get busy.
The old-timers.
Well, there wasn't many people even knew Bill
Murray out there.
A lot of the schoolteachers and all, they
thought he was just an old something, you know.
Eating and all, and one of the smartest men in
the state, you know, of course, actually.
But, especially government.
And he, and so, in about two weeks, he got a
letter from him.
Gary Jim said, I decided I'd throw my hat in
the ring.
He said, you and old George and so-and-so get
busy out there now.
And, of course, now, Dad wasn't a politician.
But, he had a little lunchroom there, and he'd
meet a lot of people.
And he got to talk him up and got some, some of
his friends interested.
Now, I don't know if it was the schoolteachers
that came out.
But, he was a nice little boy, McGillicuddy.
He played basketball and football, of course.
And, he said, he thought he'd heard about him.
And, so, he went over there.
And, listening, he came back and said, that's
the smartest fellow I ever heard talk.
I'm afraid he wants to know about that
government, you know.
And, so, he decided to run.
And, while he was running for governor,
he made that cheese and crack campaign.
And, he came out, and, and he, he stayed with
us for three or four days out there.
And, ate well and all, and, and, and couldn't
keep from those habits you'd have.
And, I can pour out a cup of coffee.
He said, give it to me. You want cream? Give it
to me. I'll attend to it.
And, he poured coffee about three or four times
and poured it up with cold water.
And, the water run over on the counter.
But, it was all right.
He did a lot of that, yes, for sure.
And, then, of course, he won his name, you know.
And, later on.
What's the cheese and cracker campaign?
Well, they call that, you know, he just didn't
have any funds much.
He, he just bummed his way from place to place,
ride with other people, you know.
In other words, just on cheese and crackers,
that's all he had to eat or something like that.
That's what they called it.
So, anyway.
Then, he won it.
And, Dad went up to see him a time or two.
I've never asked him for accommodation from
Sabbath Hall.
Never did anything.
So, he's up there one day.
And, old, I believe it was Claude Weaver was
his, was his secretary.
And, he's out in a little office right out in
front of the governor's office.
Almost down the hall.
He knew Dad real well.
And, he said, Hi, Jim. Yeah.
He said, see the governor today?
He said, Jim, you better not go in there.
I said, now, this don't do a lot of work.
He's mad as hell.
He said that they run, just run him ragged.
And, so, he said, well, I don't care.
I've seen him that way before.
He says, you'll have to get cussed out.
I don't care for him.
So, he went on in.
And, he knew him when he got over.
Hi, Jim.
Now, what in the hell do you want?
You know, everybody else wants something.
He said, Dad, I don't want a thing you've got.
He said, he's come just to say hello.
My God.
He said, sit down.
Sit down now.
They're running me crazy at this point.
They want this.
They want a bridge.
They want this.
I say, see Sam Hawks.
See Sam Hawks.
But, hell, no.
They got to see old Bill.
They want to talk to the highway commissioner
or something like that.
They want to see me.
Sit down.
Dad said, I just want to say, I said, sit down.
And, he said.
And, he got talking to old Bill Creighton back there.
And, he.
And, just talking to people they knew, you know.
And, Dad said, sit down.
My God.
I'll take you when you leave.
And, he. He.
Finally, he said, well, I just want to say.
I said, sit down.
I said, I just.
I don't.
I'm making all that.
He said, I just seem to be talking to some
other son of a bitch.
Well, his dad didn't pay no more attention to that.
He cussed his own friend.
Just cussed him out to him.
He said, I just seem to be talking to some
other son of a bitch.
And, he said, it's all right.
I'll stay down here an hour.
And, I'll get up and maybe we'll sit down again.
Well, then he did invite him out.
But, he didn't.
He had to leave.
But, he'd been out there.
Went twice, I remember.
And, he stayed somewhere with us most of the time.
And, it's interesting to hear him call.
Oh, he was smart.
Don't kid me about it.
He did mean.
Now, he put on a lot of that stuff.
They said that Chicago.
That place up there.
Some of the fellas that told me.
He knew about it.
An old man.
He was a very.
Proper adequate.
And, his meals and everything.
Dressed nice for it.
And, then he'd come out with that old tobacco
stained shirt on.
And, things like that.
And, get up and make a talk.
He'd maybe get up on the back of a truck.
And, sit down and on.
And, pull off his shoes.
And, shake some sand out of his shoes.
And, have those old Rockford socks on.
And, on.
And, wipe his feet off.
But, I can still talk all the time.
And, he didn't want to shake hands.
Don't shake hands with the governor.
Don't shake hands with him.
He said he'd just wear him out.
He didn't like that handshake.
But, then years later when I was here.
He was making a tour.
Selling his books.
You know.
Bill Murray.
He was his life story.
And, a preacher and I that knew him.
We went up to the hotel.
He just flopped down on the bed.
And, tell a story.
And, I interviewed myself.
And, he ate with me when he was here.
And, he said he remembered Jim.
And, so.
One time when he was.
Before that.
Dad wrote him and said.
I've got a good friend.
And, Bill said.
I remember I've asked him things.
But, like a job down at McAllister.
And, he says.
He's a good man.
And, he says.
He deserves him.
And, he's had some experience.
And, anyway.
His old Howard McCloud.
That later on became.
Became the warden down there.
And, had another fella.
And, this.
But, this was another fella.
The old Clydes.
He got a letter from him.
On an old.
Looked like an old paper sack.
That he carried his lunch stuff there in.
And, had some grease on it.
And, he was a big old. Heavy.
Soft lead pencil.
And, if he wanted to talk.
He didn't have his secretary.
To write out of.
He'd just write himself.
And, he wrote right.
He just carried a coin that big.
He said.
Dear Jim.
I don't know.
A damn thing about this old boy.
That you.
You asked about a job down here.
But, said.
If you say he's alright.
I guess he is.
So, you tell him.
Go down to Macalester.
And, his job will be waiting for him.
And, then.
This fella. Finally.
I think he was the one.
That finally made the warden down there.
After all those years.
But, that.
And, oh.
I'd give anything.
For that old sack.
Would it be worth something?
And, he.
But, that.
In his. Desk.
And, oh.
I never did find it.
But, I.
What about the bridge incident?
Down in the Red River.
Red River.
This is.
Wait now.
What was that saying about that? Something.
Horatio at the bridge.
He goes.
You remember that?
That statement of his.
He'd come down there himself. Going.
Had, I think.
A watch.
And, he.
for Alice, Oklahoma. Attention Mr. Leo Kelly,
Assistant Curator. My name is Gates
P. Christensen, 371 Wilson Street, Midvale,
Utah, 84047. Today's date is August 24,
1988. In regards to your letter on information
of Army Air Force cadet training, as I can
recollect, I will give it to you as I remember.
I was born in Richfield, Utah, August 11,
1918, a small town of about 3,500 population.
My earliest recollection of any airplane was
an old Vico plane, biplane, which would land at
the cow pastures and take people for a
must have been in the twenties. But in the
thirties, I had a neighbor by the name of
Mr. Ed Garn, who incidentally was the father of
Jake Garn, now senator from the state of
Utah, who had a high monoplane four-passenger
Fairchild. And living neighbors within the
block, he being a World War I, ex-World War I
pilot and a district state road engineer,
he acquired this airplane and would take the
kids in the neighborhood for rides. This was
in the early thirties, right? Depression time.
And my interest in flying was developed from that.
After high school, I attended Utah State
University for one year and then worked at
Utah Copper Mining Pit in Bingham Canyon, Utah,
where I married my wife. As war broke
out in 1941, I enlisted in September of 42,
September 26. I was given my mental test at
Salt Lake City, Utah, my physical at Salt Lake
City Army Air Base. And as I recall,
it was near 15% who passed both of these tests
before being put in reserve
until the first of the year, when we were
called to active duty. A special train left
the West Coast with quote-unquote so-called
aviation cadets headed for Wichita Falls,
Texas. They stopped in Salt Lake, picked up
people from Idaho and Utah, and then we went
straight to Wichita Falls, Texas for basic
training. It's the only place in the world
that I could ever say that I stood in, could
stand in mud up to my fanny and have dust
blowing in my face. Real estate moved every day.
The Texas moved north in the morning
and in the afternoon it moved back from
Oklahoma. And that Red River was not too
pleasant. We
had put everything on but the barracks bag in
the morning, and by 10:00 we had
to carry everything. It was too warm. Being
sent from Wichita Falls to the University
of Tulsa in a college training detachment, we
were the first group of cadets to arrive
at Tulsa University. And where an intensive
schooling started, being a little older than
the average, and out of school for a while, I
spent many, many hours after hours in the
latrine where the lights were on trying to
catch up with the classmates I had who were
most of them right fresh out of college. This
is the type of curriculum they had. In math
you started out on Monday 2 plus 2, and at the
end of the week you was in spherical geometry.
You had geography course, you had English
course, military courtesy, military letter
writing, physical training, but they wouldn't
let us compete on a collegiate basis. It was
all inter-squad activities. We spent from March
until June at Tulsa University being
sent to Aviation Cadet Classification at San
Antonio, and were classified, and then
sent across the road to the Aviation Cadet
School Training Center, starting out in Class
44D. But in the interim they had had some bad
weather up around Kansas and Oklahoma,
and they held back a big part of that class
because of the bad weather in advanced schools.
So we stayed on, a group of us stayed on for
six weeks, and we had to remain efficient
in code and physical abilities, plus the
general army duties. And we were shipped to
Chickasha, Oklahoma for primary in a PT-19,
Fairchild PT-19, and was given the basic flight
training there, primary flight training. And as
my luck always happened, I was north in
the winter and south in the summer. They moved
us then from primary training into Garden
City, Kansas, flying the PT-13, or known as the
Vultee Vibrator, or quote-unquote Widowmaker.
Had all the faults built into it, extra torque,
everything that could happen to a plane that
would make you conscious of corrections you
needed to make was built into this airplane.
As I remember having a check flight from a
lieutenant from Georgia, this happened to
be an instrument flight, and flying with two
fingers on the stick, and the communication
system from one cockpit to the other was nil.
And with a sudden withdrawal, I didn't
understand single needle width or a double
needle width turn, and whichever he asked
for I did the opposite. And he grabbed the
stick and wrapped my knees until I grabbed
hold of the stick to keep him from beating me
to pieces. And I asked for another check
ride and got another officer to check and
passed in good shape. But these were the problems
you had. And Garden City, Kansas was the only
place that I can ever remember of snow falling
that was dirty. There was dust clouds and the
snow would fall through the dust and it'd
be brown on the ground. So those months were
not too good in Garden City. And with that
we were sent down to Chickasha-not Chickasha,
Frederick, Oklahoma, where we were given
advanced training in UC-78s, or UC-Ducey as
they were called. And they flew just like
a Piper Cub, only with twin engines. Short
field takeoffs, anything, you could do anything
with them. They were a very stable airplane.
And with graduation, I was sent-let's
see, that was in Class 44E-I was sent to Fort
Worth, Texas for training in B-24 Liberators.
And transition on that was sent to Lincoln,
Nebraska to pick up a crew from Lincoln, Nebraska
to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson,
Arizona, where we took phase training. Back
to Topeka, Kansas, where we were all ready to
go. We had slow timed and calibrated the
airplane to go to the South Pacific. And our
orders were changed and we were shipped
by train to Newport News, Virginia, put on a
Liberty ship out in the middle of the James
River. The name of the Liberty ship was the S.S.
Timothy Dwight, which was named after
the first and youngest president, I think it
was Yale. But after 21 days, we landed
in Oran. And from Oran, we went up to
Marseille, France, and transferred to a ship
called the
Ville d'Oran. It was a French luxury liner,
commandeered by the British. We went back
to Algiers and ended up at Naples, Italy. We
were sent to Caserta, which was a replacement
depot just north of Naples. And as
replacements, we rode the narrow gauge railroad
over to
the town of Bari, B-A-R-I, Italy. And we were
assigned to the 724th Squadron of the
451st Bomb Group, Heavy Bomb Group, 15th Air
Force, flying out of a town called Castelluccio,
which was just west of Foggia, Italy. I flew 15
missions, plus about 10 or 15 stand-downs.
We'd get just about the targets, and then
recall, we'd have to land with live bombs,
then send us out on the next one, and we'd do
the same. So this-right at the end of
the war. So at the end of the war, we were
shipped down to a town called Bari, B-A-not
Bari, Gioia. Gioia, Italy, where they staged in
physicals and the whole bit, and we flew
war-weary aircraft back, flying from Gioia,
Italy, to Casablanca-interruptions. We flew
from Gioia, Italy, to Marrakech, North Africa,
flying over to Tunis and along the northern
shore of Africa, down to Dakar, French West
Africa, to Natal, Brazil, Georgetown, Brisgiana,
into Savannah, Georgia, where they relieved us
of our war-weary aircraft and shipped us
by train back for rest and recuperation. And
the plane I flew back ended up within forty-five
miles of Salt Lake City at Hill Air Force Base,
where it was completely dismantled.
After rest and recuperation, I was sent to
Tampa, Florida, then reassigned to Fort Lauderdale,
or Boca Raton, Army Air Force Base flying radar
students who had been POWs in Germany,
refresher courses before they were to go to the
Pacific. And the war in the Pacific ended
while I was there, and with the amount of
points that I had, I was at the first of the
line to get
out. And I drove back to Salt Lake City, stayed
in reserve for about thirteen years, but did
nothing about it. I had had all of the flying I
wanted. It's like asking for a drink of water,
you don't want the hose shoved down your throat.
But I do have in my possession booklets from San
Antonio, Chickasha, Oklahoma, Garden City,
Kansas, and Frederick, Oklahoma. Now, if they
would do
you any good, they're just the run-of-the-mill
class books that they had, and I presume that
you may have those. As far as photographs, I
have none that you would be interested in,
but if I do happen to run on to any, I would
certainly forward them on to you. This cadet
training was, in my estimation, some of the
finest schooling and training that I ever had.
It was-they didn't spoon-feed you. You either
did what you had to do, or you were on your way
on ground duty only. And knowing this, why,
everyone really hustled. And as far as I'm
concerned, it disciplined me in my later life
and my later endeavors to the point where it
had set
my study habits and so on to where I attained
what I wanted to attain. And I have no regrets
of the three years and eight months that I
spent in the Army Air Corps. In fact,
I wouldn't take a million dollars for the
experiences, but wouldn't give two bits for
some more just like them. And I do hope that
this will help you in some way. I am still in contact
with some of the classmates that I went through
cadet school with. We correspond periodically.
And the friendships were made, and they still
remain today. And of all of the things in it,
the camaraderie was way above average and
really gung-ho. In fact, my bomber crew of ten,
there are eight still in contact, and we're
meeting for-in October in north of Virginia
for a reunion of the 451st Bomb Group. So it
should be an enjoyable time, and I always see
some of the fellows I went through cadet school
at that time. If I can help you with anything
further, contact me, and it's more-this has
been easier for me to tell you this. Maybe I
didn't go into enough detail, but if you need
more, why indicate which parts you want. I hit
generalities, and I know the testing, physical,
psychomotor, and mental testing for classification
was way above average. And in fact, it wouldn't
hurt to have the same qualifications today. And
the upperclassmen and the Lowerclassmen system
worked and really did its job, as far as I was
concerned. So if this is any help, I-You're
more than welcome, and you can contact me for anything
additional I can give you. I'll be more than
happy to do it. My name is Gates P. Christensen,
371 Wilson Street, Midvale, Utah, 84047.
Telephone, Area Code 801, 255-1404.