OKLAHOMA TRIP OF 1903 Made by the Boling family from Greeley, Kansas, to Nowato, Oklahoma, 1903 Transcribed and submitted by Merl "Bus" Cornelius, (c) 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KSGENWEB INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In keeping with the KSGenWeb policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other gain. Copying of the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Note: Bus Cornelius has a large collection of reminiscences and drawings posted at http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/kancoll/articles/bus/bc_main.htm. These have to do with the Boling and Cornelius families, and mostly concern the time they spent in Lane, KS. The Anderson county KSGenWeb page is very grateful to Mr. Cornelius for sharing his memories and those of his mother Marie Boling Cornelius with us.] --- OKLAHOMA TRIP OF 1903 Written By Marie Boling Cornelius in 1961 although I am very aware of the present being nearly sixty years old I suppose I think of my childhood more than I used to and I think what brings it to my mind more keenly is watching my grandchildren grow up and to think of the things I have seen and conditions I have experienced that they will never know or see, only in story-telling will these things live. When I see our tangled rushing traffic of today and to think I was born in the Midwest at least, it's almost unbelievable. I seen my first car in our small town of Greeley Kansas and it caused more excitement than Alan Shepherd blasting off into space or walking on the moon. I was born in Greeley Kansas June 17Th , 1903 the last of nine children, my parents were Otis Amador Boling and Sarah Elizabeth Lee Boling, My sisters and brothers Daisy, Lee, Harry, Earl, Bula, Ruby, Bill and Ila. At this writing we are all living except Earl who died when he was a very small boy. When I was two weeks old Daisy decided to get married as she knew dad was planning this trip to Oklahoma and she didn't want to go, so my dear mother, God rest her soul, got out of bed with me and made Daisy an elaborate wedding dress, what stamina and pure grit that woman had, hot June weather and a houseful of noisy kids to cook for and preparing for a wedding that was held in her home. Now for the trip, two weeks after Daisy was married dad rigged up 2 covered wagons and we started out, can you imagine, hot, sultry, July weather, 6 hungry, sweaty kids and one bawling squalling month old baby. My mother must have been a true pioneer woman to endure a trip like that. I was too young to know any of this story but was told their episodes by the older children as I grew up so I will try to put it down as I heard it. I have heard them talk about the long lazy days on the road when they walked barefooted behind the wagons there feet making holes in the hot brown dust, dashing off to the side to pick a few wild flowers, two lean dogs flying in and out of the dusty weeds and grass, chasing an occasional rabbit or just running for the shear joy of being alive. There was a stop over at evenings along some lovely clear stream where a camp fire was started and water heated in a tub to bathe me, as for the rest of the family, mother would pass out clean unironed clothes, she would take the girls up the river and dad would take the boys down river for a scrub. After baths the children would scower the near by woods For any ripe fruit or berries in season, meanwhile mother was frying huge pans of meat and potatoes, slicing big thick slices of home made bread or making fried biscuits which we loved. My mother was the only person that I ever knew who made "Fried Biscuits", all this topped off with a jar of mothers home canned fruit would have not been traded for any other food in the world. While the meal was being prepared dad was unhitching the horses, he untarnished them and led them to the river to drink, after that he gave them a good rub down, and then their feet and shoes were examined as care full as a dentist would examine your teeth. Perhaps the shoe nails had to be tightened a bit or a shoe had to be replaced. Now this operation took a bit of doing as the forge had to hauled out of the wagon along with the hammers , the shoes had to be heated red hot in the fire of the forge then beaten and shaped to fir the horses hoof, which also had to trimmed like a fingernail. My dad was more particular about his horses than he was about his kids, a mans horses in those days were not merely for amusement and pleasure, they meant life and safety for he and his family. After supper, and it was "supper in those days" with dishes washed and dried ready for the morning meal, dad would stretch long pieces of canvas around the lower parts of the wagons and straw mattresses were laid on the ground inside of this, onto these the boys would pile, draw the old quilts up and were soon in the land of dreams. And believe me, you didn't need sleeping pills in those days. While I occupied the wash basket near the wagon seat, mother , dad and the girls would stretch their weary limbs on straw mattresses with in the wagons. The nights, were serene and peaceful except for the long lonely cry of a coyote, the high pitch screech of a mournful owl calling his mate to the hunt for food or the wind singing through the trees, these were familiar sound that we would have felt lost without, this was part of our lives. Some where along the way Bula had developed a huge carbuncle on her wrist, they were dreadful things and slow to heal, she told me one day Bill was driving one wagon and they were going down a very steep embankment and Bill yelled for her to put on the wagon brakes as she did so it raked the top off of this huge sore, she said she thought she would die of pain. Later as the wagon would hit a rock in the road that writs would throb and throb. Doctors were few and far between in those days of long ago so that poor little child suffered with that terrible thing until one evening they were camped by some Indians, one of the Indian women looked at Bula's wrist, she got out some black ointment that she had made, put some of it on Bula's carbuncle, wrapped it and told her to leave it on for three days which she did, when she removed the wrappings the sore was healed. Bula said that evening they had met the Indian women they had camped by a bridge and early the next morning they were on their way, several miles and some one happened to notice sister Ila was not in either wagon, the four year old was missing, so they turned around and went back and found her standing at the deserted camp site. Bula also related about coming to this river that was half out of its banks from a recent rain, big logs were floating down the river. They did not think they could make it across this river, the river bed was full of big rocks, when they started across they began to whip and holler at the horses, she said when they hit those big rocks they almost overturned , she was never so scared in her life as she thought both wagons were going to be upset and they would all be drowned but they made it across. After this they camped about half a mile down the road close to a farm house where they bought several dozen eggs and the farmer gave them some milk, how good it tasted, the first milk they had since they had left Greeley Ks. This Indian women who took care of Bulas wrist had several kids with whom she played that evening and she said they had a rather nice house and everyone was clean or as Bula put it "probably as clean as we were". And by that time I suppose any house looked good to that little girl living out of covered wagons. Some mornings when we arose if the day was bright and sunny dad and mother would decide to lay over a day then every one would go to work dad and the boys would bring water from the stream to heat in the tub on the campfire, rope was strung between trees and soon a washing was hung to dry in the sweet clean air. The older children would hunt for greens, dad would go hunting and with some luck he would soon return with rabbits or squirrels which were soon stewing over the coals and nobody could cook them like my mother could and greens cook with a bit of salt pork was not food for the Gods, but the most delicious food in the world to the people who had just prepared it. A lot of time for reflecting, dreaming and soul searching while you are gathering " a mess of greens" there would be more peace of mind, less heart trouble and nervous breakdowns if all would, once in a while "gather a mess of Greens". Now added to this menu, mother had baked a batch of biscuits or cornbread in a small oven my dad had made from some pieces of heavy tin and bolted together, he would set this oven over a bed of coals and partly cover it with dirt, sometimes mother would even make homemade bread and maybe it didn't look like a picture when it came from the oven but who cared, she would pull big ragged chunks from these loves of bread and dip then in our "Hot July melted butter" and with a dab of her home made preserves you could think of nothing better in the world. At least the world we knew, I was too young at the time to be enjoying any of this but I can remember this food from later years. There was another camp chore that everyone took their turn at and that was "wetting down the wagon wheels" in dry hot weather the wooden wheel would loosen from the iron rim, the spokes would loosen from the hub and rattle. dad never could stand that "only lazy peoples wagon rattle" so when ever camped he kept buckets of water sitting by the wagons and each time anyone passed by you poured a tin can full of water over each wheel which caused the wood to swell and tighten. There were very few towns in those days and they were small and primitive, but no child of today approached London of Paris could ever have the thrill the children did on finding one of these town looming up in the distance, they knew when we reached this utopia they would go into the "General Store" and perhaps purchase a bit of bright ribbon for the girls hair, maybe new pants all around for the boys and a bag of hard candy. We would have steak for supper, and mother, being English one very fond of beef roast always bought one to eat the following day, now this was living really living. If dad liked the town he might linger a day or two and how the kids loved that, making new friends and there was always a possibility of trading a well made slingshot for a knife with a broken blade or a few marbles - one time dad bought all the boys ten cent knifes, the wouldn't cut cheese but the were precious. By this time we were in Nowata Ok. The place where we had started for, dad pulled the wagons up by a dense hedge row, mother had fried a pan of onions and set them off the fire on the ground, Bula walking around and not looking where she was going stepped in the onions, she didn't live that down for years. Being as food was scarce and the whole family was hungry they ate them. When they finished supper, very black clouds were rolling in, the forerunner of a very bad storm so dad and the boys took ropes and lashed the wagons down, Bula said the wind blew terrible and it rained inside the wagons and out, she said they were all very frightful as they realized that the whole family and there belongings could have been scattered all over the prairie. It took days to get every thing dry again. My dad was a skilled stone mason so when we reached Nowata he traded one team of horses and wagon for a lot with a small three room house on it and went to work at his trade, he soon became tired and discouraged and Mother was miserable so they piled the family in the wagon and went back to Kansas City, Kansas Dad just walked off and left that lot and house in Nowata so I suppose it finally sold for taxes, that lot ended up in one of the vast oil fields, that was the story of my dads life always running away at the wrong time. Dad was proud of his family and always boasted he and mother had raised nine children to adulthood and not one was an alcoholic or had ever been I jail, and I observed families of today, I think he had a right to brag. What a trip with a month old baby, who cried every night of the way, no gasoline stoves, no refrigerator, no insect repellent - no nothing, just guts. I suppose the diet we had in those days would kill our children of today but I am the youngest of nine children , the eldest is now seventy seven and still living as are all the ones in between which I suppose is quite a record. This was told to me over the years and I have recorded it to the best of my ability this May 14TH 1961 Marie Boling Cornelius In 1906 the family moved back to Greeley, Ks. ---