The Robertson family’s ancestors were Highland Scots who come into this country between 1680 and 1720 and settled in Kentucky and Tennessee. During the 1800’s they emigrated into Indiana and Missouri, and from there to Oklahoma.

James Robertson, born February 22, 1845, and died July 27, 1915, in Mose Ridge, fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy, (note: According to Mary Jane Craig Civil War Widow’s Pension Application he joined the Union Army June 19 or 5, 1864. He enlisted at Davenport IA and was discharged at Rock Island IL, October 20, 1864. He served in Company C, 48th IA Regiment of Infantry Volunteers under Captain James H. Summers. – ld) after which he settled in Golden, Missouri. He married Mary Jane Craig from Indiana, daughter of Andrew and Mary Craig. Mary Craig was a fullblood Delaware Indian. (note: Mary Jane’s parents were both born in North Carolina. The Delaware tribe was from the Maryland area. Andrew Craig’s mother probably was a full blooded Cherokee Indian which would make Mary Jane ¼ Cherokee Indian. – ld)

James and Mary Jane Robertson’s son Joseph, known as Uncle Daise, was the first son to come to Oklahoma. He and his wife, Cory, had eight children. (note: According to the Census Joseph (was know as Daise or Daize), married Ollie Faulkner and had five children. James Thomas (was known as Dock), married Cora Haggard, and had eight children. – ld) They were Cressie, Ethel, Trudy, Luther, Irene, Elsie, Cleo, and Theodore. Some of their children still live in this area. Ethel married Walter Scroggins and now lives in Jay. Luther married May Newkirk. Luther is deceased. They had Dorothy, Melba, Lloyd, Cletus, and Wanda. Melba married Harold Cleveland and their son Dean lives in the area. Luther and May’s son Lloyd married Rhonda Hutchinson of Jay.

Cleo married Willar Burrow. They had two daughters – Janice married Eugene Vanover. They have Terry, Toni, and Rusty. Gene and Janice are farmer-ranchers by the county line. Elsie married Woody Goins. They have twin sons, Woody and Ronnie. Woody and Elsie live in Cleora where he is principal of the school. Cleo died several years ago.

Irene married Johnnie Newkirk. They had one son, Vaden, Irene and Johnnie lived on a farm at Mose Ridge until he died. Then Irene married Willar Burrow and they lived on the farm until recently. They are now building a home in Jay. Vaden married Gerine Hutchison and they had a daughter and two sons. Their daughter Sheila, is married to Wesley Goins of Jay. Their son, John Lanny, and his wife, Michelle live in California, and they have a baby daughter Janae Angel. Their son, Leslie, is married to Debbie Hughes of Jay.

Vaden and Gerine made their home in California for twenty years before they moved back to Jay. They now own and operate Newkirk’s Furniture in Jay.

Theodore and his wife Vera own and operate the American Café. For years the café was in downtown Jay but now they operate it from their home. It is a favorite eating spot for the Jay school kids and business people.

William Henry, another son of James and Mary Jane, married Ona Haggard, daughter of James and Mille Powell Haggard. They were the next Robertsons to move into this area from Golden, Missouri.

Uncle Daise’s wife Cory, and William Henry’s wife, Ona, were sisters. Their brother Theodore Haggard had come down to Delaware County on horseback and had rented a place down here. He went back to Golden, Missouri, and told William Henry and Ona that they should move to Oklahoma. The decision to move was made overnight. The next day they sold their cattle and anything else that couldn’t be packed into wagons and came here in two covered wagons with their six children who ranged in age from fifteen years to ten months. They were Marvin (1897), Harlan (1899), Della (1903), Willie (1906), Eardie (1908), and Rozetta (1911).

The trip took them about a week. They came through Pea Ridge, Rocky Comfort, Southwest City, Jay, across the prairie from Jay to Round Springs Hollow, on down the hollow road to about where the Cot Robertson (note: Raymond Hansford Robertson – ld) place is today.

It was raining and had been for sometime. The lane was so muddy the horses and wagons couldn’t get through, so on March 12,1912, they pulled up at Henry Thompson’s place and spent a few days with them. Ona said that the turnips and hog back that Fanny Thompson had cooking in a big black kettle over her hearth were the best she believed she had ever tasted.

They settled on the Isaac Summerfield place on Spavinaw Creek the first year and put in their crops. Uncle Daise and Aunt Cory lived about one-half mile away.

William Henry was called by the nickname Large. The nieces and nephews called him Uncle Large because when he was a baby a neighbor lady had died during childbirth and her baby boy was reared along with William Henry. When they were nursing, one was called Little and the other called Large, and the name stuck in later years.

In 1913, Large and Ona moved to the old Jim Lacy place near Round Springs about where the Bluegrass Park in now. Suring this time Ossie Cleburn “Dob” (1913), Melvina (1916), and Pauline (1921) were born. Raymond Hansford “Cot” (1923) was born on the Henry Muskrat place.

December 29, 1922, on Dob’s ninth birthday, they moved to the Henry Muskrat place where the family lived for four years. During the time the family lived on the Jim Lacy place, the community held picnics every Sunday at Bluff Springs which is the spring by Bluegrass Park.

Old man Sweatman would bring his phonograph and play music and Dob, who was about seven years old, and Zetta, about nine years old, would jig dance. The people started throwing nickels and dimes. Zetta remembers that the first Sunday they bought tennis shoe with the money and the next Sunday they bought straw hats.

At this time it was required that everybody dip their cattle in the big dipping vats located at the springs. Willie and Eardie were hired to fill the vats with spring water. After the stuff was put in the water, Eardie said that the four Burton Boys would strip off and swim through the vats. They said it was to kill ticks.

The dipping vats were very narrow. They are still there today but when you look at the vats you wonder how a cow or bull could get through them. Today’s cattle couldn’t but the range cattle of yesteryears had no trouble going through

About this same time, when the Robertson boys would go opossum hunting they would make young Dob carry the lantern because he was such a sleepy head that he would fall asleep walking along the trail. When the light went out, they would go back and get him.

December 25, 1926, the family moved for the last time. Large, whom his kids called Pap, bought some land from Leaf Constitution. Pap and the older boys were building a house on it. So, on December 25, 1926, Ona (Mam) decided to move. The house wasn’t ready and Pap, along with the older boys Marvin, Harlan, Willie, and Eardie, was up working on it. Mam loaded up two wagons and the kids (Zetta, Melvina, Dob, Cot, and Pauline) walked behind. When they got to the new house, a very surprised Pap started putting in windows. They had the floors down on two rooms. Quilts were hung over the doors and they slept on pallets on the floor that night because Mam was ready to move and she did.

They raised cotton, corn, maize, and vegetables. Each year they made sorghum molasses and had eggs, butter, and cream which they took to Spavinaw each week and peddled. This was during the time the Spavinaw Dam was being built and there was a good market.

Besides farming, Pap was a carpenter who also became a casket maker. After making the casket, the women, Mettie Cox and Mam, would pad and line the casket, using black and white sheathing with lace around the edges. Also, Mam was the community midwife, serving in the place of a doctor.

The elder Robertsons, “Pap” and “Mam” were hard working, thrifty people who sent their children to school to better themselves. The children first went to Raper School. Early teachers there were a Mr. Bush and Loren Hemphill. When they attended school at Mose Ridge, one of the teachers was Dewey Buck.

“Our large family was a family of musicians,” said Zettie Sturges, one of Mam and Pap’s daughters. “Pap was an exceptionally good fiddler and every member of our family learned to play two or three instruments. They included the organ, fiddle, banjo, gullet, and “taterbug” (later called the mandolin), which three of us played. Our home was a center for play parties which our parents enjoyed as much as we did.”

“Pap could make sorghum and farmers from miles around brought their cane. After the season, we had many parties on the pummies pile, dancing on the ground-up cane stalks.”

About 1914, Uncle Yearl (Eli) and Uncle Georgie (George) along with their mom and dad (James and Mary Jane Robertson) moved to Oklahoma. They lived down below Asley Hollow. The place is now covered by Spavinaw Lake.

Uncle Yearl married Aunt Jennie Walker. Uncle Yearl had two boys back in Missouri, Delbert and Dallas. Aunt Jennie had a daughter, Eleanor. Then together, they had three children: Leone, Ivy, and Zealous.

Uncle Georgie married Effie Vanover, who was a sister of Floyd Vanover. They had no children and she later died. Sometime later Uncle Georgie and his mother moved back to Missouri.

Uncle Doc was married to Ollie Fortner. They had five children: Cosby (known as Tom), Versia, Elmer, Gladys, and Lois. When Lois was born Ollie contracted childbed fever and died. Uncle Doc then raised the children by himself until about 1924 or 1925 when, while he was working in the mines at Pitcher, he ate some goose-liver cheese, came down with ptomaine poisoning and died. Tom kept the family together until Lois was grown. Tom and his wife, Babe, lived in the Mose Ridge community all their lives. They had no children but helped raise nieces and nephews.

Gladys married a Philips and they had two children, Dee and R. L. Later Gladys married Ernest McLain and they had several children. Dee Philips married John Scott and they live in Mose Ridge Their daughter, Sherry, married William Johnson. They have three children: William, Darren, and Cheryl. Another daughter, Linda. married Randy Henson and they have one son, Johnny. Johnny bought the Willar and Irene Burrow farm in Mose Ridge this year.

In 1926, Willie (William Lawrence – ld) and Eardie (both William Henry “Large” Robertson’s sons – ld) had a 1926 Model-T touring car, the kind with no top. There was a ball game at Chimney Rock on the other side of Salina and the whole ball team was going on Leaf Constitution’s flat-bed truck, so Willie and Eardie parked their car at the store at Topsy. The truck stopped on the road at Dutch Haggard’s, and Dob (Ossie Cleburne another William Henry son – ld) and Gene Haggard jumped off the truck to go get Dutch who was their pitcher. They had to go about a hundred yards to his house but he wasn’t home, and so they had to come back without him.

When the players on the truck saw the boys without Dutch they drove off and left them, Dob and Gene walked back up to the store and saw the car that Willie and Eardie had just parked. Dob was about fourteen and Gene was a couple of years younger, neither one knew anything about driving a car but they decided they wouldn’t be left behind. They fooled around with the car a little bit and finally got it started, then headed toward Spavinaw. They couldn’t get it out of low gear but after they figured out about taking off the emergency brake, they just went flying, Dob said.

Before they got to the county line they were so good at driving that they were sitting up on the back of the front seat steering the Model-T with their feet. By the time they reached Spavinaw, the boys realized that they didn’t know where Chimney Rock was or how to get there. They saw there was only about two gallons of gas left in the car so they turned around and headed back to Topsy. When they were just about back to the store, they ran out of gas. When Eardie and Willie got back from the ball game, they really chewed Dob and Gene out for using up two gallons of gas because gas was sixteen cents per gallon and that was high.

When Ossie Cleburne was about four or five years old and they lived by Bluff Springs on the Jim Lacy place he got the name Dob tacked onto him because he was always digging holes back under the ground and putting mud around on them to make caves. Then when company came, he would go hide in the cave and just stick his head up. From this, they said that he was just like a dirt dobber and the name stuck. It was later shortened to Dob.

In 1913, Carrie Robertson Burks, sister to James (Uncle Daise), and William Henry (Pap), moved to Round Spring Hollow with her husband, Marion. They eventually moved to Ada, Oklahoma, where Carrie, who is 91, is living in a rest home.

Pap and Mam had ten children, of which eight are still living in this area. Harlan died in 1966 and Della in 1975. They have forty-seven grandchildren, ninety-five great-grandchildren, and several great- great grandchildren, most of whom still live in Delaware County.

Mam was born December 21, 1878, in Golden, Missouri, and died May 5, 1961. Pap was born August 27, 1875, in Golden, Missouri, and died January 24, 1972. They are both buried in the Mose Ridge Cemetery. Their son, Marvin, went to Germany as a soldier in World War I. When the war was over, he returned to marry Roxie Haggard, the girl he noticed when he had come to Oklahoma some nine years before. Her father ran the store and her mother was the postmistress. Marvin war a Delaware County Commissioner in the 1940’s. They live in a two-story rock house about two miles north of the Topsy church.

They had three children. Mary Jane married Charles Penn. They have one son and one daughter, Phil and Neecie, and live in Texas. Charles married Leona Dykes. They had one son Jackie. They divorced and he married Margaruite Cook Haggard.

They have one son, Roger Charles. Velma Jean married Bob Willhite. They have three daughters: Vicki, Bobbi, and Terry Jo.

James Harlan didn’t marry until late in life. He was a favorite uncle and all the children called him Ha Hee. Harlan usually played Santa and I remember one particular Christmas time when our family (Dob and Vera) had come back from California, and we four little girls (Pat, Leila, Joy, and Barbara) and Pauline’s daughter, Genevieve, were in bed at Mam and Pap’s house. We heard Santa’s sleigh on the roof and the jingle of bells. When we got to the door it was gone. Ha Hee had struck again. And if one of the nieces or nephews, needed rocking and sung to sleep, you could hear his bi-oh-be-be a mile away, but it put the little one to sleep.

Harlan and his brothers, were wolf-hunters and kept wolf hounds. They could tell you the voice of every hound. (It also led to some good arguments telling which hound was in the lead by his voice.)

Harlan married Betty Abercrombie Haggard. They had no children. He died in 1965.

Della married Duke Williams. Della had a daughter Vida, who Mam and Pap raised. She married Buster Morrow. They had two children, Larry Joe and Lorene.

Della and Duke lived down in a hollow north of the Trading Post. They had seven children. I remember very fondly the times I spent the night with them and the fun we had. The boys slept in the loft and climbed a ladder on the wall to get there.

Their daughter Alice was called Honey. She married Leonard Hicks and for years they had a milk route with Honey driving one truck and Leonard the other. They had one son, Russell, deceased.

Their son, Bill is a housing contractor in Jay. He married Vera Wiese who lived just over the hill and down another hollow from them. They have a son, Ray, and two daughters, Regina and Angela. I remember when Bill came to spend the summer with us to help out on the farm when we lived on the old Mose Ridge place. I followed him everywhere he went. Bill was fifteen or sixteen and I was about seven or eight.

We had a swing in an old cedar tree in front of house made out of a cable. We would twist the cable with a tire tied on it and then let go. We would go round and round until we were so dizzy we couldn’t stand up. Well, one day Bill wound me up in the tire swing and let go. As it picked up speed, the cable broke and slung me, the tire and the cable quite a ways. The breath was only knocked out of me, but it just about scared Bill to death.

Von was nicknamed Young Man. They said he wasn’t named until he was about six-months old and by that time the name Young Man had stuck. He married Barbara Hutchison Laws. They had two daughters, Teresa and Rhea. They live north of the Trading Post.

Lonnie married Fran Hampton. They have two daughters, Tamara and Marcia, and twin sons, Johnny and Tommy. They live just west of the old Buckner berry farm. Lonnie always kept some kind of pet when lie was a kid, either a skunk, opossum, deer, or bull calf. He had a deer one time that didn’t like women it they were wearing a skirt. The only time it would fight was if he saw a women wearing one.

Ona Lea was married to Gene Rogers. They had one daughter, Kathy. They divorced and she married Merle Lawson. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, and son, Anthony. Merle died in 1976.

Betty married Marvin Lawson. They had three children: Jerri Ann (named after their best man and bridesmaid, Jerry Baker and Eva Ann Mason), Marty and Mike. They divorced and Betty lives in Langley. Jerri Ann married Cherokee Williams and they have a daughter, Mandy.

Della and Duke had a son, Robert, who died in infancy. A short time later a neighbor lady died in childbirth and the baby’s father gave Della the child to raise as her own. He was named Clarence Duke Stewart but everyone knew him as Studie Williams. He married Mary Kirby. They live in the old home place of Duke and Della and have two sons, Danny and Mark. Duke died several years ago and Della died in 1975.

Willie married Lillie Newman. They live on a portion of Mam and Pap’s old home place. Their son, Billie, and his wife, Jan, live in the old house that Pap and the boys built in 1926.They have a daughter, Robin, and a son, Wade. Willie and Lillie have another son, Kenneth, and three daughters: Freda Sue, Nancy Lou, and Loretta.

Kenneth, known as Big John, is married to Marlene Haggard. They have two daughters, Gwendolyn and Amy, and a son Bradley. They make their home just east of the Trading Post.

Freda Sue married Joe Kirby. They operated a service station and store for awhile at the Spavinaw Y. They have three daughters: Sheila, Sherry, and April.

Nancy Lou is married to Tonice Caudill and they have one son, Tad. They operate Caudill Tire Service between Jay and Grove.

Loretta is unmarried and lives in Miami.

Eardie married Wanda Morgan; she died at the birth of twin boys. “Mam” Robertson was able to save one twin who was named Marion Eardie but was called “Thumbie” because he was so small when he was born. Eardie later married Beatrice (Button) Dick and they had two sons. One died in infancy and the other was called Thomas Leon. They divorced and he later married Thelma Tipton. Eardie was a pipeliner, wolf hunter, and fiddler. He also hauled cattle to and from sales for people until he recently retired.

Thumbie married a Hampton girl and they had a daughter, Kathy. They divorced. He and his wife, Jean, have a son, Todd, and live in Vinita.

Mam and Pap raised Thumbie – when he was about fourteen or so he was the undisputed marble champion. He kept a tub full of the marbles he had won in games. I also remember that he had a pair of stilts that were very high, and when we would stay overnight at Mam and Pap’s we would try to get Thumbie to let us walk in them. Sometimes he would condescend to play annie-over with us little girls but more often than not he would run away with his iron hoop and stick with a tobacco can bent and nailed on it, and leave us girls to our own devices.

Tommy married Pat, a girl from Miami. They had two daughters and a son, Brett. They divorced. Tommy then married Catherine Merseh. They have two daughters, Brandi and Christi Jo, and live in Midland, Texas.

Rozzetta Mae married Julian Sturges. They have six children. Velta Bea married Charles Carr. They have two daughters, Debbie and Theresa. Debbie married Dean Cleveland. She has two daughters, Christie and Misty. Therese is married to Lewis Tauuneacie. They have one daughter, Melissa Ann. They all live in the Jay area.

When we girls were small, Velta Bea came to stay and take care of us while our mother went to California to visit her sick brother Leigh Duffield. What I remember most about it is Velta Bea curling our hair in rags. We sure thought we were pretty.

Lora Mae married J. L. Morrow. They had three boys and one girl. They live on a farm on down the road from the old home place of Mam and Pap. Their son, Bruce Lee, married Phyllis Cunningham. They have one daughter, Maddalee, and live in Mose Ridge. Ricky married Debbie Russell. They have two daughters, Jamie and Jody. Kim married Pam Morgan this year. Their daughter, Trenda, lives with them on their farm and goes to Jay school.

Violet LaRay married Joe Hall. They lived in Oregon until just recently when they moved to Jay. They have three sons Tim, Rory, and Mike. Violet is now called Vi, but when she was growing up we all called her Bolley Ray. All of us cousins – Robertsons, Sturges, Martins, and scores of friends­ played in First and Second Hollow. We didn’t need toys to entertain us for we found our toys in nature. We used rocks to outline a house in a grove of persimmon trees and for our store we used overripe yellow cucumbers and whatever cans we could rifle from the trash.

Very fond memories for all of us are Slick Pond, the girls’ and the boys’ swimming holes, old man Peddlers’ cabin and the bluff where we left blue trails from our new blue jeans in the snow. Memories of Mose Ridge overflow and there isn’t enough paper a contain them.

Charles Wayne was nicknamed Dicky Boy by his father and this was shortened to Dick. He married and had a son, Russell. They divorced and he married Mary Lou Fields Reid, and they have a son, Brent. They live near Afton. Dick and I were very special friend and playmates, and would sit up in the old cedar tree for hours talking and dreaming. Along with our other cousin, Calvin Martin (Big Boy, Shotgun, Big Shot, and any other nickname we could think of) we would haul hay, go noodling, and just have fun in general.

Sue Nell married Richard Shock. They have three sons: Rodney, Richie, and Ronnie, and live in Idaho.

Raymond Eugene, married Judy Barnwell They have a son, Kevin, and a daughter, Marsha. Raymond and Judy live in Topsy.

O. C. “Dob” Robertson married Vera Pearl Duffield in 1935. They lived in Topsy where they operated a grocery store after a spending several years moving back and forth between California and Oklahoma. Also back in the late 1930’s,Vera and Dob owned and operated a store located just east of Mam and Pap’s house and across the road. There isn’t any building there now, only a couple of trees. Thumbie used to go into the store and cough or clear his throat. Dob said it was a “bologna” cough and gave him some. Of course this reinforced the cough any time he went to the store be coughed.

Vera died March 20, 1976, and is buried in Mose Ridge. Dob married Donna Barnwell Vivion on June 24, 1978.

Dob and Vera had seven children said all but one live in the Jay area. Patricia Pearl married Lewis LeRoy Knipe and they have three children: Deborah Kelly, Richard Lee, and Clifton Randall. They live north of the Trading Post on the old Buckner berry farm.

I was born next and named Leila Jean. I was called Ijean or Ilajean until I got in high school. I married R. E Overstreet. We had four sons and were divorced in 1975. I married Stephan Grant Christensen from Nebraska and we make our home in Jay. My sons are Jeffrey Allen, Glen Dob Edward, James Denton, and Robot Benjamin Grant.

I remember them telling about the time we had come back from one of our many trips to California and everybody had gathered at Mam and Pap’s house. We were going to spend the night there and all this man had gone off hunting or fishing. The women had made pallets on the floor and were getting their children put down for the night. They say (and surely they must exaggerate) that I started bawling and squalling for Bobbo (Dob). I thought I couldn’t sleep anywhere but on his arm and he was gone. Melvina would just get Treva to sleep and I would start in again. By the time Dob got home the whole clan was ready to give me to him, and finally after midnight the babies could sleep, their mothers could sleep, everybody could sleep, and so could I because I had Bobbo’s arm.

Joy Ann married Ray Edwin Kay. They have two daughters, Stephanie Ann and Darla Jean. They lived near the Spavinaw Y.

Barbara June was nicknamed Bib and was called that for years. She was the baby of the family for five years until our brother Jerry was born. Barbara married James Lawrence Armstrong, Jr. They have two sons, James Lanny and Timothy Shohn. They make their home in Broken Arrow.

We lived on the old Rogers place when Barbara was born. Mom had to go to the hospital at Pryor because that was the closest one back then. Barbara was born January 5, 1944, during a big snow storm. The electricity was off at the hospital and there wasn’t much heat. When she was little, Barbara was plagued much of the time with pneumonia which started when we three older girls (ages two and one half, three and one-half, and five) decided to we what our little sister looked like. We caught Mom out of the car for a second, rolled down the car windows, and uncovered her. I guess we were trying to undress her when Mom caught us.

When we lived on the Roger place, we used to delight in going over to Polly and Dutch Haggard’s house. Their daughter, Jo Ann, had a store-bought toy washing machine. I was two shades of green, about twelve aches high and when you turned a crank it looked like it was really agitating.

Jerry Cleburne was born December 18, 1948 (we had moved to the old Mose Ridge place). I remember Mom couldn’t go to the Mose Ridge Christmas tree that year. It was a community event that you just didn’t miss because we kids put on plays, skits, sang songs, spoke recitations, and then there was Santa, giving out sacks of candy and presents. We kids would practice for weeks and have our lines down perfect but something always happened at the last minute, like stage fright, a lost costume, or some other thing. But our parents were proud of us and we were proud of ourselves.

Jerry married Linda Currey. They have three daughters: Tammy, Jerri Lynn, and Savannah. They live in Mose Ridge on the old Jackson Vanover place. He is a carpenter.

Cynthia Jo was born October 25, 1960, two weeks before we moved to the new house Dob had built up on the prairie by the Mose Ridge schoolhouse. Our teacher at that time was Ben Snyder from Jay, and he tried to get Mom to name the new baby Janet, but Cynthia it was. Of course we kids changed It to Tenny Jo.

She married Jimmie Claud Hollenback and they live on a farm in Round Spring Hollow, the old Guy Lawson place. They have two daughters, Jamie Carol and Leah Jo, and two sons, Jimmie Albert and Jason Paul. Jim is also a carpenter.

Vera Annette was born February 3, 1962 at Afton. Dr. Finley, our family doctor, had his office at Ketchum but took his patients to Afton. I remember when we were told we had another sister. We had spent the night with Willie and Lillie and were riding in the back of their pickup truck up on stock rack. They met another car just before we got to the Topsy church and stopped. They said we had a baby sister. I remember being surprised because I didn’t even know Mom had gone to the hospital.

Annette married Phillip Morgan this year and lives north of the Trading Post.

You may have noticed that I refer to my father as Dob while I say Mom for my mother. We always called him Dob. One day when we were small and had been to Willhite’s store, Wilsie told us we should call our father daddy. She said, trying to bribe us, that we couldn’t play with Bud, her son, it we didn’t call Dob, daddy. He was always kidding with us and he said, “Don’t you ever do it” So we didn’t and still don’t. By the same token, Willie’s kids called him Willie. One day they said, “Willie, who was your Willie when you were little”

Mam and Pap’s daughter, Melvina, was named for Mrs. Frank Haggard. She married Joe Martin and they had six children.

Christine married Curt Kenney and they have one son, Jody, and three daughters: Sandra, Stephanie, and Pamela. They live in Langley where they have a furniture store and TV repair business.

Calvin Edward married a girl from Brazil, Iline de M. They have four sons Joseph Condido, Ed­ward, Patrick, and Stanislau. They spend time between Melvina’s house in Jay and Dallas while Calvin works overseas.

Robert Marion (Bobby) lives in Langley with his sister Christine. He has never married.

I remember when we all (Melvina, Mom and all of us kids) used to go to Jay on Saturday. It war in the 1940’s, we would save cream and eggs all week then take them and sell them to Mersch’s Grocery which was also a cream station that was located where Kelly’s parking lot is now. As a treat we kids got a milk shake at Trolinger’s Drug Store. Some­times we even got to go to the movie matinee. One day when we were going home, we had opened the gate that led through the field to our house (the old Mose Ridge place) and hadn’t shut the car door good on our 1935 Chevy we hadn’t gone too far when the door came open and Bobby fell out and hit his head. He seemed to be all right but that night they had to rush him to the hospital with a high fever. His heart stopped once or twice and he stopped breathing but they kept trying and finally saved his life.

Treva Jean has never married. Her father, Joe, died and her mother and she live in Jay where she works in the Delaware County Bank. Treva has worked there the past seventeen years and is head cashier.

Arnold Dean is married and lives in Del City. Oklahoma.

Gary Dewayne is not married. He lives in Midwest City where he works.

Pauline, Mam and Pap’s youngest daughter, lives in Welch. She is married to Charlie Whisamore and they have three daughters: Charlotte, Peggy, and Paula. Pauline has a daughter, Janice Genevieve, whom Mam raised. Genevieve was usually in on our escapades. When we spent the night with her at Mam’s house we had fun snuggling down in the featherbed mattresses. The next morning we would take a broom and beat smooth the featherbed when we made it up.

On Mom’s floor in the bedrooms were deerskin rugs we always tried to step on them because the floors were cold. But the kitchen was always warm and we would get our plates off of the highboy and get the sugar syrup that Mam had made and fresh butter she had churned sit down at the long narrow table Pap had made. He also made the chairs. The bottoms were strips of latticed tree bark and wood.

I remember one time Pap made a sauerkraut board for each one of his daughters and daughters-in-law! He was a good carpenter­

Genevieve (called Janice now) is married and has one son. They live in Welch.

Raymond Hansford was the youngest of the lot. He was called Cotton Top when he was little and that was shortened to Cot. He married Juanita Duffield, a sister to Dob’s wife. They Live in Mose Ridge where he farms and also is a carpenter. Carpenters seem to run m the family as his brother Dob is a carpenter too.

They have three daughters and two sons. Mary Arlene married Truman Bingham. They live in Mose Ridge and have three daughters: Kimberly, Leslie, and Shounda. Arlene was called Pinky when she was little because her hair was so white that an old lady seeing her little head through the white hair said. “My what pretty pink hair she has.”­

Carol Ray’s nickname is Moe. He married Diane Newby from Spavinaw and they have one daughter, Christy Raye.

Their other children, George Dale, Toni Lynn, and Elesa Anne, live with them on the farm.

We used to have charivaris at Mose Ridge every time someone got married. We would ride the newly wed couple on a rail and would mostly wind up throwing them in the creek. All this was after they were caught, of course, and they almost always led us on a merry chase – over fields, through woods, in and out of windows, sometimes the pair would split up and the groom would try to lead us away from the bride. Such gallantry! But they always got caught, even if we had to come back another night to surround the house with pans and lids banging, firecrackers going off, and a lot of whooping and hollering. Most time charivaring just one couple wasn’t enough. So if you had gotten married in the last year or two, beware! One of the favorite couples was Cot and Juanita. They got charivaried about ten times, I guess. Anyway it sure was fun.

Cot and Juanita lived on down the road from Mam and Pap toward Tia Juana about five miles. Saturday nights, without it even being prearranged, the whole community would gather at their house to play games. From the oldest to the youngest they would join in such games as “What Are You Going to Take Out West with You,” “Skip to My Lou,” and “Happy was a Miller Boy.” Sometimes we would make homemade ice cream. But whether we did or not, everyone had a wonderful time and you don’t see fellowship like that much any more.

One time someone said, “If you live in Topsy, you are either a Robertson or a Willhite or wanting to be,” and I guess they are right

–Submitted by Leila Robertson Christensen