Frequently my children and others have urged me to write my biography and recalling the many times I have wished my father had written such a story of his life so I could read today about things that occurred 132 years ago, I have decided to comply with their wishes.

John Hall, who was the City Editor during the 44 years I published The Daily Democrat-News, after his retirement ask to write my biography. When I told him I had been so poor I did not want any one to know about it he said, "That's the story --- sort of rags to riches." John should have said modest financial security instead of riches.

On that basis, I will tell it as it was. Some things may seen trivial, but I want to compare yesteryear as it is today.

My parents were unable to give me even the minimum normal requirements of that time, but they did give me guidance and taught me that it was necessary for me to work hard and long hours at a very early age. They attempted to instill in me pride, fairness, punctuality, a determination to succeed and to set my ambitions high and strive for that attainment.

At the conclusion of my biography, I plan to give a resume of my ancestors and relatives and will use part of my brother Willie's biography for that purpose.

I was born February 9, 1887 and at this writing I am little more than 83 years old. I do not have a gray hair on my head, just a little thinning in the crown, and only wear glasses to read and write.

I suspect the house where I was born was quite primitive and perhaps dilapidated, fully one-half mile, or further, from a country road. Why such a location I have been unable to fathom.

Seemingly, as in most all births, I was born at night so it was necessary for my brother Willie to ride horseback about four miles round trip to get the mid-wife, Mrs. Whitney, who attended all births in that community, never a physician. Willie was 15 years old. He said he never saw it rain harder during that trip. Of course, Mrs. Whitney rode behind him, side ways.

Willie said that a sow farrowed that night and it was necessary for him to rescue all the pigs and take them into the house, as the place where the sow was was being flooded.

I was the eleventh child in a family of 12 and the first boy to arrive after the birth of four girls. It is natural to assume that I was a spoiled baby boy, so great was their joy. I suspect my father was about 45 and my mother perhaps 41 when I was born.

I can remember some things when I was perhaps three or four years old. It was quite the usual custom those days for a young child to sleep in the foot of the bed of the parents. Perhaps there was no other place. I do not know if I slept in my parents bed, but I do remember that I arose when my parents did. The usual custom was for my father to get up at four o'clock the year 'round and make a fire in the wood cookstove. While my mother was preparing the breakfast, I remember my father ground the coffee in a small coffee grinder, held between his knees. The coffee had been bought "green", or unroasted, and my mother roasted a quanity of it in a bread pan in the oven of the stove.

When I was perhaps four years old, I wandered away from the house one afternoon, crawled between the slats of a gate into a field, about one-eight mile from the house, in which there was a large herd of hogs. When I found a nice cozy place in a small hollow, I laid down and went to sleep. Of course, everyone was frantic and started looking for me, for had the hogs found me first, they would have certainly eaten me.

Another narrow escape I had was one winter day when my father and brothers were butchering hogs and I was about three years old. (I don't remember this, brother Willie told me.) They had set me on the ground on some of their coats at the corner of the barn and for some reason Willie later picked me up and put me in a wagon box. Just a few minutes later, a sow came around the corner of the barn and tore the coats into shreds, which she would have done to me had I been there. Hogs are vicious when they smell blood.

Other things I remember, perhaps when I was just a little past four; one morning just as the sun was coming up and my father and brothers were harnessing the horses preparatory to going to the field, I came to the barn with a hoe over my shoulder and said, "Pappy, where are you going, I am going to the bottom and hoe beans." But I did not!

One day when my father was cultivating some corn in an orchard with a double shovel plow pulled by one horse, I was allowed to ride the horse and on one or two occasions, when I failed to duck, I was raked off the horse by a limbs of the tree onto the ground.

I remember a half dozen other events, but I mention these insignificant things merely to show that a person can remember events when they are only three or four years old.

I suspect shortly after I was born my family moved to another tenant house on a public road on my brother Lee's farm and only a short distance from his home. Perhaps I should explain why my brother, Lee, owned the farm land and my father was only a renter. To do this, it will be necessary to refer to some of my ancestors.

My father was born in Virginia and his father's family owned a water wheeled grist mill and at one time was considered wealthy by the standards of that day. Came the War Between the States, the operators of the mill purchased grain, paying gold and selling the finished product for Confederate paper money, so confident were they that the South would win. When the war ended my forebearers had a flour barrel full of worthless confederate bills. My sisters still have some of those bills.

During the war the Yankees burned the mill and my father told me, in his opinion, had his mother displayed the Masonic Apron of her deceased husband, the mill would have been spared.

After my father's parents died, he and his sister, Mattie, were the only heirs. They sold their interests in Virginia and came to Missouri. My Aunt Mattie came first with my brother, Lee, and sister, Carrie, and it was Aunt Mattie that financed my brother, Lee, in the purchasing of the farm land. My father probably expended all his inheritance moving his family to Missouri, consequently was unable to buy any land.

Soon after that time, in 1891, the government was practically giving away homesteads in Oklahoma, so my Father decided to move to that state, which proved to be a disastrous mistake. Brother John had married and had preceded us, so we moved in with him on a farm near Mulhall, Okla.

My father had gone ahead to Oklahoma so the household goods and livestock were loaded in a box car at Gilliam and brother George accompanied this car to water and feed the livestock. I supposed he slept in the box car. What a responsibility for a 15 year old lad!

All the children were at home then, except brother Lee, who remained on his farm, and Willie, who later returned to Missouri and worked as a farm hand at $15.00 per month and regularly sent some of his money to his parents.

At age of five it was my "task" to carry, in my arms, all the firewood for the stove, pick up the wood chips and gather up the corn cobs. My mother and sisters always impressed upon me if I were bad the "bad man" would get me and burn me up. One day I told them I would carry in the wood for the "bad man" if he wouldn't burn me. They thought that a pretty cute excuse!

While in Oklahoma, brother George had a very, very bad case of typhoid fever and nearly died, living in such primitive surroundings. His doctor was a woman, Dr. Hastings, and she always wore a gun belt with holsters to support two pistols. Brother Willie, during his almost two year stay in Oklahoma, lost his eyesight for several months and it was my task to lead him around the yard and other places. Not far from the house was a hollow that had a steep bank and one day when I was leading him close to the hollow he fell down the bank and then promptly gave me a good spanking, although I had told him we were near the brink.

If I were asked to make a preference among my brothers, I believe my answer would be Willie. He was also very fond of me.

When I was about six, brother George was plowing corn with a tongue cultivator and I sat on the framework, as there was no place for a seat, and drove the team for him. One day one of my sisters came to the field bringing some water for us to drink. When I started the team going again, George told my sister to pick up a clod and hit the horse next to her that was lagging behind. Instead of hitting the horse next to her, she threw over that horse's back and hit the other horse that was one that had grown up wild on some western range (you never conquer a western horse) and the result was the team ran away, with George bearing down on both shovels and the horses did not stop until finally the breast-straps to the neck-yoke broke.

The cornfields looked fine every year until the corn was about waist high and then one day a hot wind would cook it the same as if boiling hot water had been poured on it, consequently no crop. However, we did have some wheat crops. The alkali water killed several of the horses we had shipped from Missouri.

After we had been in Oklahoma about three years, the government opened up the Cherokee Strip for settlement and on a certain day, at a certain hour, a pistol was fired starting the race for thousands of people for a homestead. My father and brother, Willie, and sister Carrie, entered that race; my Father staked off a 160 acres of farm land to learn that another man had claimed 80 acres of it and as the stranger carried two pistols my father had to settle for the 80 acres that later proved to be worthless. My father built a one room frame house, about 16 feet by 16 feet, with a loft reached by a ladder on the inside for a sleeping room for the children. There was just the weatherboarding on the outside, leaving the two by fours exposed on the inside. I suspect this farm was about 24 miles from where we lived in Oklahoma.

Prior to the day of the race, some persons, violating the rules, explored the country so they could race to the land previously selected without taking a chance. Such persons were called "Sooners" and so today the Oklahoma football team is know as "The Sooners."

My father dug three or four wells on the farm seeking water he never found. The digging was done with pick and shovel and the use of a ladder and home-made hoist. It was not necessary to wall up the wells, that were about four feet in diameter, as the earth was like concrete. I guess it had not been wet since Noah's flood! I don't remember of my father ever putting out a corn crop.

While we were away from Missouri, we regularly hung up our stockings at Christmastime, but all we got was perhaps some cheap toy, given us years ago, and a spoonful of dry raisins, never fruit or candy, but that was because we did not have a fireplace with a chimney for Santa Claus to come down!

One day my mother and I (age about six) walked across the prairie about six miles roundtrip to Perry, the nearest town, and coming home I was carrying about 15 cents worth of uncured sidebacon and it smelled so good I thought I could eat it raw, but I couldn't even after it was cooked, it was practically all fat.

While in Oklahoma, sister Carrie and Carl Potter, a native of Oklahoma, were married and sister Nettie married Sam H. Hill, who had migrated from the same community in which we lived in Missouri.

After about five years in Oklahoma, we couldn't stand it any longer, so my father and brother John bought some wagon bows and some ordinary white sheeting (we couldn't afford the price of water-proof ducking). The women sewed the sheeting into wagon covering and the two wagons were loaded with all we could get in them and we started the trek to Missouri. What we did not have room for in the wagon, featherbeds, furniture, etc., were just left in the house. The two cows were just turned loose on the prairie. In other words, we just picked up and left.

Brother John and his wife and two small sons were in one wagon, my parents and four sisters and me in the other wagon.

I was about seven or eight years old then and I recalled about the second or third day out, in going across a wide prairie in the Indian territory, there was a large herd of cattle with long horns grazing and a strong wind was blowing and blew one of the girls' bonnet away from the wagon at a fast pace and I was put out to retrieve it. All the time the two wagons kept moving away from me and when the herd started to charge me I just barely made it back to the wagon in time.

Of course, we camped out every night and one night we thought we had found a nice spot, when a stranger rode by and told us there was danger of the creek overflowing in the event of rain and at that time there were threatening clouds, so we reloaded and moved to higher ground. Sure enough the place we stopped was flooded.

After we got into country where crops were raised, we children did a little foraging (not stealing!) of roasting ears for the families to eat and also for the horses. We didn't pass up any apples that had fallen along the roadside and maybe just inside of the fence. In every instance the wagons kept rolling forward and it was up to us to get the loot and run to catch up with the wagons.

I remember going through Butler, Mo., and we passed through Marshall about five o'clock in the afternoon and camped just across the Salt Fork bridge on the Marshall-Slater road. However, the camp was for only a short time as we were just waiting for it to get dark, as we did not want anyone to see us arrive at Brother Lee's house. It was about midnight when we drove the wagons behind the barn, out of sight of the public road, and slept the remainder of the night in the wagons. I think it took about three weeks to make the trip.

After arriving back in Missouri, we lived in a tenant house owned by Perry Storts, Sr. He had a pasture of ten or twelve acres just west of the house, with a high fence around it, and he kept a herd of deer, also elk.

Out next move was to the tenant house belonging to brother Lee in which we had lived before going to Oklahoma.

I want to say no one ever worked harder than my father and mother. Wages for farm hands were 75 cents per day, when you could get work. In the wintertime my father, with the help of my brother, George, would cut cord wood on the shares. That is, they would cut two cords, one for the land owner and one for our family. A cord of wood is a rick four feet wide, four feet high and eight feet long.

Sometime in blizzard weather, my father would take a cord of wood to Slater, a distance of five or six miles, over frozen roads, walking beside the wagon to keep from freezing, park on Main Street and wait for a purchaser to come by. Seldom did anyone stop until about sundown, hoping to buy the cord for less than $1.50. Sometimes there were no buyers and he had to bring the load back home.

One year, I remember, our suppers were corn mush and skimmed milk for a long time. Every day my sister, Daisy, and I would take a jug, with a corn cob for a stopper, to a neighbor to get the gallon of free skimmed milk, a distance of about 2 1/2 miles round trip. We took along a tobacco stick, four feet long, to run it through the rope on the jug handle, thus dividing the load.

We had to walk the four miles round trip to the Good Hope School and when it was raining it didn't make much difference, as we were barefoot.

All clothing was home-made and my pants and coat were usually made of gray jeans, that material turned water and wind like leather. When I attended school I wore leather boots in the winter time, but no overshoes. Consequently, the boots would get hard and stiff and were difficult to pull on. My Mother had to help me most of the time.

Sometime the enrollment at the Good Hope School reached 80. Boys up to the age of 21 years attended. They were full grown men, but could only attend when there was no work to do on the farm.

Edna Norvell and I tied in a spelling match that lasted the entire term. She received a $1.75 bangle, I received $1.75 in cash. Edna was a niece of brother Lee's wife and brother Lee was the teacher.

When I was nine, I plowed with a 3-horse, 16-inch, walking plow for half a day. I back-furrowed, that means I threw the plow out of the ground at the end of the land and the horses dragged the plow across the end of the strip when I would again put it in the ground. We had a good dinner that day, navy beans, but I was too tired to eat anything.

At my age, about eight, I was unable to bridle a horse by standing on the ground, so I would put a rope around the horse's neck and lead it to the door of the so-called smokehouse, or utility room, which had a door about two feet above the ground. One day when I led a horse to the door, the horse saw a few ears of corn on the floor, consequently stepped on the floor at the door, but my foot was under her hoof. The consequence? All the sole of my barefoot large toe was torn loose and just hanging, but grew back again.

When brother Lee's wife's mother, Mrs. Quisenberry, died, we moved to that 160 acre farm, where brother Willie worked for Mrs. Quisenberry as a farm hand. Mrs. Quisenberry had a daughter named Sue and she and Willie were very much in love, but Sue's mother would not consent to Sue marrying a farm hand. Sue never married and I believe she loved Bill to her dying day, when she was about 80.

Sue and brother Lee's wife were sisters.

One fall, when I was about ten, we turned under a heavy crop of rag weeds in preparing to sow wheat. When drilling the wheat, brother George sat on top of the wheat drill and drove and it was my task to keep the trash cleared out from the drill shoes. A job that kept me stepping on the weed sticks most all the time and there was also considerable dust from the ragweeds. About that time I became seriously ill and was unconscious for several days. I believe the doctor said I had convulsions and he was very worried about my condition, even after I was able to get up.

During my illness I had extremely high fever. Each day two of my sisters would take a gunnysack and walk four miles round trip to a neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Keith, and get a lump of ice, probably 25 pounds; each one of my sisters having hold of one end of the sack. No task was too difficult for them to aid their precious brother.

The first thing I remembered after regaining consciousness was, I was trying to catch the gray mare over in the west pasture. Prior to that illness, I had chills and fever for two or three years. I have taken more quinine that any person who ever lived.

In those days they didn't have capsules, but had to mix the raw quinine with scraped apple, or something, to hide the taste, but nothing did. Chills would come every other day at 10 o'clock, followed by fever.

Speaking of ice, some of the more prosperous farmers had ice houses. To make an ice house an excavation, approximately 14X14 feet, was prepared and the depth was 10 or 12 feet, with of course, a shingle roof over it. The inside wall was probably of logs to prevent caving.

When the ice was about six to eight inches or more in depth on the pond it was time to put up ice. A team hitched to a sled, with a wagon box on it, was driven along one side of the pond; the farmer, taking a cross-cut saw, from which one handle had been removed, would go to the opposite side of the pond, chop a hole with an ax, into which he would insert the saw; saw a strip about two feet wide to the side where the sled was located; with an axe, one or two licks would separate the strip of ice into a block about two feet square, just what one man could handle.

After the first block had been removed, the ice strip was floated to the loading shore and so on. Quite simple. I doubt if any ice tongs were available. The ice was lowered into the ice house by a chute and the ice would be placed by a man evenly, or just dumped in from the sled. Of course, this method would leave a lot of space in between the blocks.

When the ice house was filled, a thick layer of wheat straw was placed over the ice for insulation and the ice, in some instances, would keep most all summer. Some people used sawdust, which was better insulation.

Farmers usually ricked their hay in the field in which it was cut. The length and width of the rick being determined by the amount of hay in that particular patch. Of course, the hay was first cut, allowed to cure about one day when it was raked into windrows. Later it was placed in shocks by men with pitchforks. When everything was in readiness, one horse with chain harness, a rider, and a strong rope, about 25 feet long, was ridden alongside of the shock. A man would put the rope around the bottom of the hay pile, stand on the rope for about 10 feet when the horse started and then the rider was on his way to the hay rick. Usually two riders could keep the two hay pitchers at the rick busy. As a rider, that was the job of a nine or 10 year old boy, or girl, and that was a task much sought by the youngsters. Motie Roades was a girl that frequently was used as a rider.

When I was about 10, my brother, Lee, asked me to tromp hay with the stacker to keep the stack even and solid. That afternoon about 2:30 the stacker got off the hay stack and, with the pitchers, sat in the shade of the stack as the weather was very warm. I kept right on tromping hay, as I was afraid if I stopped, I wouldn't get paid. That evening when the crew quit at sundown, we went by brother Lee's house. He was in the barn lot milking and I asked him if he were going to pay me anything. He said, "Yes, I'll give you a quarter sometime." That was the first time I ever received pay for working!

A later method of haying was the bullrake, an implement about 16 feet wide, had teeth 10 inches apart and about eight feet long that rested on the ground. There were two wheels at the rear, a tongue at each end and the rake was pulled by one horse with a rider at each end. This method eliminated the necessity of windrowing and shocking the hay, as the riders would go into the unraked field, load up and bring a huge load to the stack.

Do not think it was all work for a youngsters at age 10. There were many things we could do for amusement that did not cost anything. One of the pastimes was seeing who could climb the highest in trees in the forest, or bending saplings over to ride.

I remember one time that Motie Rhoades, a girl two or three months older than I, climbed to the very topmost limb of a big white oak tree. The top limb was so high that it swayed with her weight. I wouldn't attempt to go so high. Motie is still living in a rest home in California.

Another sport was swinging on the wild grape vines.

At school it was always some game that didn't cost anything, such as Blackman, wrestling, baseball games, see-saw, stinkbase, drop the handkerchief, leap-frog, foot races, long and high jump, jumping the rope, ante-over, which dividing two groups, boys and girls, equally, one on one side of the school house, the other group on the other side. The ball was thrown over the roof of the house and if caught, that group would rush around to the other side and throw the ball at someone and, if hit, that person had to join the group that caught the ball.

The ball was always a home-made ball, never a purchased one. It was made by saving all the wrapping strings and winding them around a small rubber ball, if you had one. If not, a walnut was used. When the ball was about the right size it was sewed with long stitches to keep it from becoming unravelled. Of course, all the baseball bats were home-made, each boy doing his best to produce a good bat. No gloves or catcher masks, everything was in the "raw".

Another game played at school was "Shinney", which was the rural version of the present day hockey, except old tin cans, or an old worn out croquet ball, was used. One day at school in playing with a croquet ball, a boy hit the ball and it hit my club (all clubs were home-made) and the ball ran up my leg, hit me squarely in the mouth. The force of the blow loosened both upper and lower front teeth and split my lower lip. I pushed the teeth back in line with my tongue and used wood ashes and turpentine for my wound, which later developed gangrene and it was necessary to see a doctor. I still have the lip scar.

For the lone boy at home, if he could afford to spend 5 cents, he could purchase two heavy rubber bands and make a "pea-shooter". I killed a bird that was sitting on a post one time. A bow and arrow could be made from the rib of an old umbrella and a string and for arrows one could use a piece of shingle, or a dried weed. If there were any scrap lumber a sled could be made, if you could find a loose board with nails that you could extract. I doubt if we ever spent 20 cents for nails per year. Bows were also made of hickory wood. The only plaything ever purchased for me was a $1.75 wagon as a reward for getting well during my serious illness. It was greatly appreciated, as I then could haul the firewood instead of carrying it in my arms.

The only source of bolts and nuts was an old discarded binder and you had to hunt over it until you found a bolt that would suit your purpose.

I was perhaps 12 years old when my father's sister, Mrs. Mattie Finell; died in Fort Worth, Texas, and my father, being the only heir, inherited her estate, which was a house in that city that was sold for $2,500.

My father then bought the farm we had been renting and, seemingly, we became more prosperous after that.

The 160 acre farm cost $40.00 per acre and, of course, the difference had to be borrowed, the interest becoming due every March 1st. Instead of waiting until that time to pay the interest, my father would pay it in July when he sold his wheat, ahead of the March date, so punctual was he, explaining the roads might be impassable in March.

It was about that time my brother, George, married and went to farming for himself, leaving the responsibility to me to run the check-rower corn planter, wheat drill, wheat binder, etc.

I started thinning corn, if there were four stalks in a hill, one or two had to be pulled out, when I was about seven or eight years old and I was assigned to only one row, while my father had two.

This task I thoroughly disliked for stooping all day would cause my head to ache, perhaps due to the chills and fever. A wet field was a good time to thin corn, when you couldn't do anything else and, of course, I was barefoot. Another task, when I was older, that was very hard work was to cut the weeds in the fence row with a hand scythe when the ground was too wet to work and many times the fence rows were infested with poison ivy.

Another task for a boy was to replant corn with a hoe and a bag of corn where a hill had failed to come up or had been washed out by rains, and to hoe corn when it became weedy or grassy. It was also my task to pull weeds out of the corn after it had been "laid by", but my father usually worked with me.

I had been making a regular farm hand since 10 years of age, driving the 3-horse team to the harrow, which was considered easy work, although I had to lift the harrow to clear the trash and when the ground was dry, a cloud of dust followed always. I did my share of plowing with a 3-horse team and 16-inch walking plow and three acres a day was a good average.

All of our implements were of the walking variety, except the corn planter and binder.

In that era, most all corn was checked, that means that rows were three feet, eight inches apart and the hills were the same distance. If the operator were an "artist" the rows would be straight and the hills in perfect alignment so the corn could be plowed crossway from the planted rows. To check corn, a linked wire with buttons every three feet, eight inches, extending the entire length of the field, perhaps one-fourth mile, was used to activate the mechanism of the corn planter. Of course, the wire had to be released at the end of each row to turn around and then again attached to the planter.

When I was about 10 years old it was the custom to use five horses to a wheat binder, and on one of the two lead horses I was rider. One time the horse right behind the horse I was riding nipped my horse as we made a turn at the corner, which started the wild western horse to run away. Fortunately, the wheat shockers were nearby and were able to stop the run away.

Later, only three horses were used to pull a binder and I drove the team from the binder seat and also operated the mechanism of the machine.

When finances improved, my father purchased a surrey for the family and when I was about 19 or 20 years old he bought a nice new buggy for me. Before that, our only mode of transportation was a wagon and team.

When I was 17, I enrolled at the Slater High School and rode the distance each day horseback, a round trip distance of 14 miles. There were no hard surface roads in the county and frequently mudholes would develop in the roads that were impossible to get through. Consequently, a person on horseback rode the fence rows to get around them.

In the winter, when it was bitter cold, my father would get up early, feed my horse and, after breakfast, bring it to the yard gate for me to mount. When I returned home he would take care of the horse. In addition to my heavy wrapping of clothing, a horse blanket was thrown over the saddle before I mounted and then wrapped around my legs. When the roads were bad, the horse could only walk all the way, which was time consuming. Of all the 12 children in the family, I was the only one to attend high school four years.