WE VISIT AUNT LOU

It might be good for you to know, that the roads in that part of Oklahoma were laid out in a one mile grid. Each square mile (one mile long on each side) contains 640 acres of land. The roads ran strait east-west or north-south every one mile apart, unless intercepted by a canyon, uncrossable river or creek, an impossible hill or a very large land holding by one owner. You might consider that you are looking at a checker board. Each square mile is called a section containing (as I have said) 640 acres of land. Each of those could be divided into half sections of 320 acres or into 4 quarter sections of 160 acres. [If you would just come over here, I could draw you a diagram much more quickly that I can type this explanation.] Each quarter of 160 could be sub-divided into two 80’s, or four 40’s and on down to 20, 10, and 5 acres or less. Now with all that under your hat band, let’s take a walk.

Our two roomed house on the Morgan Place was located near the west edge of the southeast quarter of that section. So we lived between a quarter or half mile west of the southeast corner. On a bright sunny morning Mother got her sewing box. It was a boot box in which Daddy had bought some cowboy boots. She sewed clothes on the sewing machine. But her needle work was crochet and embroidery, mostly embroidery. I don’t remember that she brought anything else, than the box.

We went out our driveway, turned east at the mailbox and walked down the road to the corner of our section. We turned south and walked several yards, then we climbed through the barbed wire fence on the east side of the road. (One mile south down the road we were on, at the southeast corner of that intersection is a farm that years later belonged to Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Perry Freeman.) So that was a whole new section of land. We were in the west half section (320 acres). In the middle was a house. Papa had a cousin, Ina and Tommy Braker, whose son and family lived there. We often visited them and they us. But that day we angled from our entrance to the plowed ground in a southeasterly direction to hit their driveway a little south of their house. The driveway was about a half-mile long, and we were crossing a quarter mile of plowed dirt.

We had climbed through the fence onto freshly plowed ground. That was tough going even for an adult. I became really tired very fast. Mother squatted down, had me climb onto her back and hold around her shoulders. Then she stood up and held the boot box behind her with both hands so I could sit there holding on. Wow! What a relief to a two-year-something boy. But I've always envisioned that scene in my minds eye, as a very courageous women, in a labor of love lugging a heavy load, not because she had to, but it was her choice.

When we got to the end of Braker's driveway, we turned east on the road south of that section(The house Daddy built for Kathryn and Perry was later just to the west of where we entered the road.) So we were a quarter mile east of the west corner of the section, and we still had at least a quarter mile or a little more to walk uphill to Aunt Lou Walker's house on the south side of the road. Aunt Lou's was always a fun place to go. She was the youngest of the five Maberry sisters. They had one brother who lived, Uncle Homer. Mother Shumaker was the eldest of those girls. Aunt Lou was married to Uncle Lloyd Walker, his brother Uncle Jess was married to their sister, Aunt Alta (they pronounced it, Alti), and the Walker brothers had a sister, Thelma Walker, who married Uncle Homer Maberry. It was their brother, Roy Walker and Amy, who lived across from us at the Two-Roomer. (There were a lot of those Walker brothers and sisters.)Wow! If you've kept up with all that, you've walked fast and are a smart guy or gal to boot. Thanks for coming along.

It seems there were some other women at Aunt Lou's that day. There was a noon meal a little while after we arrived. In the mean time I was busy playing on the enclosed side porch and the yard. On the side porch, Aunt Lou had a chalk deer, in a laying position.l I always thought it was neat to look at. I don't remember touching it or playing with it. It would have been about 18 inches long and maybe 10 inches at the top of its ears. I still remember they had it later when they moved to another farm. I think the farm to which we walked might have been called the "Sunny Thurman place". I believe Daddy picked us up later, so we didn't need to walk about 2 miles back home. I think it is such a grand thing that Daddy would do that for us ... no doubt it was mostly for Mother, me being so much smaller.