Marie by kanee

Marie
by
� kanee

My father�s mother, Marie Ester was born in 1902 in Marion, Indiana. She
claimed to be Scottish, Irish, English, and Black Dutch (Cherokee). Her father was diagnosed with Tuberculosis when she was three years old. He consequently loaded up his family of 6 children in a covered wagon and journeyed to Guthrie, Oklahoma in order to be near his brother who lived there. She never could decide if she actually remembered it, as she was so little, or if she just recalled the others talking about it over the years. Regardless, she would entertain me for hours with stories of their journey, of the big storm that blew the wagon over, of gathering up buffalo chips as they walked along to build the fires to cook or of the perils of crossing rivers in a wagon.

After they reached Oklahoma, her father became gravely ill. Her uncle built a platform in the yard, away from the house, and put a tent over it for the children to live in as her father was quarantined inside the house. Her mother remained inside the house to care for her father and the children had to tend to themselves. Her
father stayed inside the house for about a year before he finally passed, at which
time, they burned the house, with him still inside. The state quickly stepped in,
telling her mother that she could not care for six children on her own and that they would have to go live in an orphanage until such a time that she was re-married. Grandma doesn�t remember the trip to Liberty, Missouri to the orphanage, but she does remember her life in the orphanage. Until her dying day, she would not speak
of it except to say that she thought she had been sent to hell because she had been
bad and that her life there WAS hell.

Her mother re-married a Dawson, a shirttail relative of the famed Dawson Gang
in Coffeyville, Kansas, and quickly returned to the orphanage to retrieve her
children. My Grandma never, ever spoke to me of Mr. Dawson, and I never heard anybody else speak of him, either. Families are funny that way.

Grandma lived in Oklahoma most of her life, attending the little country schools in
the area, from time to time. She grew to be an extremely handsome woman and I
still remember how her auburn hair blazed in the sun. When she was a very young woman, she met and fell in love with an equally handsome man named Edward McLauren (his middle name). But he broke her heart when he joined the Navy
and left here.

She later met and married Charles, also known as �half-pint Charlie�. Grandma implied his nickname was indicative of his heavy drinking, but I�ve noted from his photos that he was a rather small man, so I�m guessing his nickname was derived from a little of both. He was from a �well-to-do� family... well, for these parts at
least, who owned and ran a general store in the area. Charlie was an extremely skilled and well-known carpenter and many homes in the area still boast the
beautiful arched doorways and cabinetry that he created.

Grandma and Charlie had three children together, the youngest one being my Father. Theirs was a tumultuous relationship, because of Charlie�s drinking, and when my father was 3 years old, Grandma divorced him.... an almost unheard of thing for a woman to do in this neck of the woods and an outrage in that day and time. She was determined that her children would not be banished to an orphanage, as she had been, and worked very hard to keep them with her. She went to work right away for Mr. Frank Phillips, founder of the Phillips 66 Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, OK. He had a beautiful log home-turned-mansion, known as the
Phillips Lodge nestled amongst the pin oaks on the wild animal preserve that he owned and maintained West of Bartlesville called �Woolaroc� and is there to this
day. (Woolaroc meaning Woods, Lakes, Rocks). The Woolaroc Ranch sports a
buffalo herd, among other animals native to the area on the animal preserve, and
the famous Woolaroc Museum and Indian Heritage Center. You can also tour the Phillips Lodge. It is one of my favourite places to visit, and I visit it often.

Grandma lived in the bunkhouse with the other employees at the ranch (it�s still
there as well). She was allowed to keep the children there with her only
occasionally, and during the times they weren�t allowed, they stayed in town with
her mother. But when they were there with her, they were in their element. Wide open spaces, wild buffalo and cowboys and Indians abounded... real ones. Will Rogers was a frequent guest at Woolaroc as were many famous Indian Chiefs. I
have a picture of my father sitting on a pony owned by Will Rogers when he was
about four or five years old. There were many important negotiations and
meetings conducted at the Phillips Ranch and was a playground for the rich and famous in the 20�s and 30�s.

My Grandma�s job was to iron the linens for the Ranch. She would stand on her
feet 12 - 16 hours a day doing nothing but pressing sheets and kitchen linens. She
of course, used the old heavy cast iron type irons that you heat on a wood burning stove. She had two irons, one always on the stove heating while she ironed with
the other. It was also her job to occasionally help with the dusting in the museum after it closed in the evenings. When we were little, she would terrify us with her stories of the dark museum at night, and how the authentic shrunken heads from
South America seemed to come �alive�. She also told tales of waxing the wooden floors and how all the employees would run and slide back and forth in the stocking feet or dance to polish to floors and how they laughed for hours while they worked. Of course, the Phillips were away when all this was going on. One time when the Phillips were there however, Mrs. Phillips left her mink stole lying on the steer
horn sofa in the lodge and all the employees, (including my Grandma,) tried it on modeled it for each other and put on a �style show� that sent them all into hysterics.

I loved her spunk, she was full of spit and vinegar and I think her time spent at Woolaroc was the happiest time of her life. Edward McLauren had since returned from the Navy and he and my Grandma quickly took up where they had left off.
He was very good to my Grandma and to my father and his sisters. He took over
their care when he returned, keeping them with him when Grandma couldn�t keep them at the ranch, raising them as his own. Charlie had long disappeared and I
never met or knew him. My father saw him very, very little after the divorce.
And we never spoke of him out of respect not only for Grandma, but for my step-grandfather as well. My step-grandfather was the only grandfather I ever knew
and I loved him with all my heart. They were eventually able to marry and when
they did, Grandma left the ranch and moved back into town with him and the kids.
If she ever worked outside the home after that, I cannot recall.

I remember her as being a lot of fun and it was always an adventure going to her house as a kid. They lived in the country, always had a big garden, lots of trees,
open pastures, creeks, barns and a few farm animals. My Grandma always felt
that my mother was �too strict� (well, she sorta was lol), so when we went to her house she not only allowed us, but encouraged us to be wild and free. She would
pack us a lunch of peanut butter and jelly and fix us a mason jar full of water and
send us out to explore for the day. And explore we did. We walked the trail
through the prairie for a good mile to the creek and spent the day hiking, climbing trees, wading, skipping rocks, looking for fossils and running from the bull (who �treed� us more than once), and we always managed to dodge the snakes on the path. And we learned that you don�t know how fast you really CAN run until you are
trying to outrun the stink of a skunk. And when we returned home late in the afternoon, she would give us a �country bath� outdoors in number 2 washtub with
the garden hose, just because she could and it was fun.

Grandma had a great sense of humour and a great laugh. She once wet herself
from laughing so hard when Grandpa chopped the head off the goose and it took
off flying straight towards me, headless, causing me to scream and �hit the deck�
in an instant.

One of my favorite childhood memories is of sneaking the salt shaker from her
kitchen table, going out to the garden to pick a tomato, and then climbing up into
the giant elm to sit up there and eat it, thinking she didn�t know what I was up to.
She later told me it gave her great joy to see me sitting up there, free as the eagles, eating tomatoes. Once I dropped the salt shaker while in the tree and it landed
upside down, making a perfectly shaped �S� with the salt when I picked it back up.
I have that salt shaker now, sitting on my kitchen table, and I never use it but what
I don�t think of her and all the fun she created for me.

It was always great fun sleeping over at her house as well because we always �got�
to sleep in the floor of the front room. In the wintertime, it was lovely as we lay
on the floor in front of the roaring fire of the fireplace. In the summer, it was even lovelier as we lay there feeling the warm breeze waft through the open windows
and listened as the night serenaded us to sleep. Years later, when my brother and
I were adults, we discovered that we both had been having the exact same dream
for years, which originated at her house. We both dream we are lying in the front room of her house sleeping, when we are awakened by something that terrifies us,
but aren�t sure at first what it is. At some point we realize that a giant, angry bear
is trying to get in the front door as we can see his face in the window of the door.
We try to scream and run away but we are paralyzed with fear and begin to �float� uncontrollably towards the door. We always wake up just before we get there.
We both dreamed this at Grandma�s house as children and continue to dream
that exact same dream to this day.

Many was the time that Grandma and Grandpa would show up at our house, unannounced, to gather all of us kids up for a �ride�. They would take us out to
some remote, wild place in the country, kick us out of the car and tell us to go play. We would swing from the grape vines, climb the �mountains� (ok - hills), and
traipse through the wildnerness. And we always managed to talk them out of
stopping for ice cream on the way home. Those were some of the best times of
my life. I was the oldest of five, which carried a lot of responsibility in our family, but the times spent in the wild with Grandma and Grandpa were the times I was allowed to be a kid for a little while. For that, I will always be eternally grateful
to them both.

Zinnia�s and mint. That was Grandma. And I grow them now just for her. It helps me to feel close to her. She always had a big bouquet of fresh cut zinnias on her dinner table and it was my job to go pick and wash the mint for the iced tea.

Grandma was an avid reader, considered herself an expert in politics and world events and even tried her hand at poetry. But she suffered horribly in her later
years of life with her back and hips and eventually became morbidly depressed because of it, losing her spunk and sparkle. Her and Grandpa lived here in town
until he passed away, and she followed him a year later. I was there with her
when she crossed over and I could almost see her again, young and beautiful,
auburn hair glistening in the sun, smiling and waving us on as she sent us out for
the day, except this time it was her turn to explore and be wild and free.

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