The Life of Me | Page 4

a farm some eight
miles southeast of Duncan, Oklahoma.
About the same time the Gaddie family moved to their farm near
Duncan, we find the Johnson family leaving Texas where the weather
turned dry and the grass became scarce and the Johnsons drove their
cattle to Indian Territory looking for grass, and they found that grass
near Duncan, Oklahoma.
They stayed in Oklahoma about four years and during that time at least
two of the boys were busy at things other than sitting around watching
cattle grow. Andrew had married a girl named Mary, and Will had met
this pretty little freckle faced girl from Kentucky.

So then, as you can see, here in farming and cattle country near Duncan
is where the Johnsons met up with the Gaddies. This is where a
schoolteaching cowboy named Will met a country farmer's daughter
named Emma Lee. This is where the falling in love took place. And
this is where Will married Emma in the fall of 1896. She was 18, he
was 22. They were my parents.
After living in Oklahoma that four years, Grandpa Johnson went back
to Texas looking for land to buy. He found what he wanted and bought
1,000 acres of unimproved land in Jones County about three miles
southeast of Hamlin. Then he went back to Oklahoma to get the family.
So by the time Grandpa Johnson was ready to start his journey back to
Texas with his family, the family had increased by two
daughters-in-law and two grandchildren. Will and Emma had a son,
Frank, six weeks old. Andrew and Mary had a daughter, Ruth, only
three weeks old. Some thought that Ruth was too young to make the
trip in the cold of winter. But they all came through in wagons and
drove their cattle. That was in January of 1898.
In later years Mama told me that she thought she would have frozen to
death if it had not been for Frank in her lap to help keep her warm. The
trip took two weeks in the dead of winter and it rained every day of the
trip.
Since there were no improvements on the Johnson land, they all rented
other farms for a year or two while they made improvements. Papa and
Mama rented and farmed one year in Fisher County. Much of the well
water in that county tastes so strongly of gypsum that people have to
haul their drinking water from the better wells. So, the story is told that
when they were driving their covered wagon to Fisher County, they
stopped and asked a man, "How far is it to Fisher County?"
The man said, "You are still about ten miles away."
"How can we tell when we get there?"
"You will see farmers hauling water in barrels in wagons."

"Have they always had to haul water in Fisher County?"
"Yes, but during the World Flood they didn't have to haul it so far. The
flood water came within a half-mile of Roby."
I guess Grandpa farmed at least one year in Fisher County. They tell
me that Ed, one of the younger boys, went to school in that county at
White Pond one year.
Grandpa had bought the l,000 acres for all the family. Andrew and Will
were the first ones to buy their portions of 100 acres each. The raw land
had cost $3 an acre. Papa's farm cost him $300.
Papa was fast becoming a good carpenter and he did his part in helping
build a two-story house on Grandpa's portion of the land. The house is
still in good shape and has a family living in it 77 years later.
Andrew first lived in a dugout on his 100 acres. They used the dugout
for a kitchen and storm cellar many years after they built a house beside
it.
Papa's land was in the southeast corner of the 1,000 acre tract. He built
his house about a quarter-mile south of Grandpa's house. It is still
standing also. Since that time some of the Johnson boys and girls have
bought and sold and swapped portions of the land. But most of it is still
in the hands of the Johnson boys and girls or their sons and daughters.
After farming in Fisher County in the year of 1898, Papa moved to a
farm in Jones County, a mile northeast of Neinda, and farmed there in
1899. And there, in a half-dugout, my sister, Susie, was born.
Many years later as we would drive by the farm in our hack, on our
way to church at Neinda, our parents would point out the old dugout
and explain, "There is where we used to live." Year after year as the old
dugout deteriorated and began caving in, we still went