Thoughts on my father

These are mom's recollections mainly of her father and growing up on their family farm outside Enid, Oklahoma

With his father's help daddy contracted to buy a couple of farms in the Enid area. As he was looking around to see who might be willing to join him in his new venture, he found that mother had grown up, gone off to high school and was now back teaching the school near his farm. He courted her in his horse and buggy and his warm good humor soon won him a bride. In May, 1917, they were married. He was 28 now and she was 21. They set up housekeeping on the farm where they were destined to spend the rest of their days. They had a firm faith in God and were determined theirs would be a Christian home.


By dent of hard work and using every bit of knowledge he could acquire, daddy was able to feed and clothe the eight children who were born to them during the next 15 years. They even built a new brick house when the family outgrew the old frame structure. The local lumberyard had been unable to raise cash to pay daddy for sand and gravel delivered to them from our sand pit. They were glad to pay the bill in lumber, nails and supplies. Neighbors were happy to bring their teams and help dig the basement for $1.00 a day plus $1.00 for the team. Carpenters, lathers, plumbers and electricians came slightly higher but were glad to get the work. Daddy's Sunday School class even got in on the act by helping to tear down the old house and pulling nails from the lumber so it could be reused in the new house. Their pay was .25 a day plus a big dinner at noon. Each day's work meant one more time they could go to a movie.

And those dinners! The big girls (I was 9 at the time and my sister 10 1/2) would cook the meals on a kerosene stove in a shed and we served them at a long table, seating 20, in the same shed. We cooks and the three little kids ate leftovers after the others finished. Some of the workers brought lunch pails, others ate at the table every day during that 2 month period. We moved into the basement of our beautiful new home in Sept. and had our fist meal upstairs on Thanksgiving day. It snowed that day but that didn't dampen our joy as relatives came to help us celebrate. We had running water but were to wait two more years before there was money for a generating plant so that the electricity could be hooked up and we could have lights and a hot water heater.

Daddy never stopped learning. He read and he listened. He studied new methods and quickly adopted them if they seemed to fit his situation. He was just as quick to drop them if they didn't prove themselves. He took advantage of mechanized farming as fast as money allowed. He was one of the first in the area to use diversified farming which seemed to best fit the erratic seasons of Northern Oklahoma. This meant raising not just wheat, but also oats, barley, feed grains, hay crops, cattle, hogs and sometimes sheep. This all took work and good management; and daddy worked. He ran more than he walked in those early years, until a bleeding ulcer threatened his life. He recovered but was to live with that ulcer for more than 40 years until an operation became imperative.

There were good times and bad. Hail storms destroyed ready to harvest crops, a tornado took the roof off the new barn. Mother had scarlet fever along with the first four children--right at harvest time. And then chicken pox with all of us just after the sixth child was born. Daddy had a warm loving nature and we knew he was interested in us at all times and was sorry when we were sick. I can't remember daddy really punishing us unless it was a a quick shove with his boot when we were dallying. He just expected us to do the right thing. I suspect he was too busy to nag us about jobs. He told us what was to be done and expected that it would be done.There were times when I felt he trusted me more that I deserved to be trusted.

Daddy was too soft-hearted to turn anyone away from his door whether it was a salesman or someone needing a day's work. There was always at least one hired hand around--a nephew, a neighbor's boy or someone who had walked up the road. He treated them kindly and fairly but expected them to put in a full day's work in return. Several wanderers came back regularly knowing that if daddy had the money and could find a job for them to do, he would take them in. Or if there was no money, they could work for room and board until a job opened up elsewhere.

And so our family survived storms, accidents, illnesses and even the depression. In fact we didn't even know we were poor. Everyone else we knew wore hand-me-downs and made-overs and home-mades. Even shoes were half soled at home and handed down. But some of you know the make-do's of the depression. We had enough to eat, clothes to wear and a warm home, in fact a new one. Nobody else had any money either.And what did we teat during the depression ? Breakfast was oatmeal and eggs except when eggs were quite high and we sold them. Then it was pancakes or biscuits and gravy. Dinner was fried chicken from late spring til late fall. Then we butchered a beef. So beef til mid-winter when a couple of pigs were butchered. An occasional fat hen or rooster for chicken and dumplings. Whatever vegetables we could grow in the garden and can. Also fruit from the orchard or grandpa's orchard. Always potatoes and gravy, always dessert. Cake, cookies, pie, pudding or fruit. Always homemade bread.

Yes, we weathered the depression and daddy even acquired more land. So he did well during the war years when farm prices were up and he continued to buy more land as he was able. He said land was the only stable investment and time has proved him right. The three oldest of his 4 sons served during World War II.

The country church closed in 1924. From then on we drove the eight miles in to the First Methodist Church of Enid except when the highway was  blocked with snow or we got the car stuck in the mud going the mile and a half to the highway. We went to church on Sunday morning and gathered around the piano to sing on Sunday evening. Sunday was a day of rest and except for necessary chores with the livestock, no work was done on Sunday even in the midst of harvest.

Daddy taught the 7th grade boy's Sunday School class for over 40 years and was pleased to see several of HIS BOYS go into the ministry. He figured he might have helped them make up their minds. He challenged each year's class by telling them how he had wanted to be a minister and couldn't. Then he'd say he hoped that one of them might feel led to be a minister or a missionary. But above all he challenged them to lead dedicated Christian lives. Seventh grade boys aren't easy to teach and he came home many a Sunday sure that nothing had been accomplished. Then one of his former students would come back and tell him how much the class had meant to him and daddy would find the courage to go on. He always kept chewing gum or mints in his pocket to bribe the monkeys who wanted to climb over the partition into the girl's class.

Daddy had his turn at most of the jobs in the church and he sang in the choir from the time the oldest child was old enough to sing and go to choir practice with him, until the youngest child graduated from college and left home.

College--that's another thing--It was just expected that we would all go to college when the time came. It wasn't until later that I wondered how on earth our parents during those depression years with eight children could even DREAM of sending a child to college. But when my brother graduated from high school in 1937 he went to the local college and when my sister and I graduated two years later we did the same. We were commuters to both high school and college which meant high schoolers waited on the college crowd at times or vice-verse. Mother and daddy took great pride in the fact that all the children eventually finished college although the war delayed things for some of the boys.  Vicariously daddy reveled in the opportunities that we had which had been denied to him The youngest son even gladdened his daddy's heart by becoming a minister.

I don't' know when my folks became committed to a plan of tithing their income but I know that they did tithe and suggested to us that tithing meant that there was always money for the Lord's work. They found pleasure in deciding where the money would do the most good if they ended the year with more than enough tithe money to pay their church pledge.

Daddy said he was too sleepy at night to pray, but he nearly always woke up at four in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep for a while. He said this was his time to talk to God. He always included each member of the family by name in his prayers and prayed for any problems or situations he knew they were facing. Eventually there were twenty-one grandchildren but he could remember their names and approximate ages because he prayed for them each night beginning with the oldest down to the youngest.

At breakfast time, we read the Upper Room for family devotions when it became available. At an earlier time I can remember daddy or mother reading the Bible to us at night then we would kneel by our chairs to pray. Needless to say, the Upper Room devotional seemed an improvement to me. Somewhere along the line Mother acquired a Bible Story book which she read at bedtime for the younger ones. And we found many occasions to sing whether it was hymns around the piano or popular songs while hulling peas or ironing. My oldest brother enjoyed singing as he plowed through the night after harvest.

Daddy gained a lot of satisfaction from serving on the church building committee when the church decided to build a new sanctuary after the war. Then they went on to build a new educational building and finally replaced the old sanctuary with an extension to that building. Daddy was no longer young at this time but he was kept on the committee because of his young ideas and interest and enthusiasm. He was justly proud of HIS church.

One of daddy's greatest joys was attending annual conference which he did every year, except for the few times when illness prevented, up until he was 80 years old. He kept up his friendship with the ministers who had been his classmates at the academy and they never failed to look him up at conference.

He was a member of the conference camp committee for several years when they were searching for a new camp site. When a beautiful canyon site came on the market, daddy bought it himself for it became evident that it would go to another group unless it was purchased immediately. He donated the land to the conference and put in a lot of time on camp development. The assembly building was named for him and he was honored for his work during conference last summer.

As soon as the camp was ready for use, the men's club of daddy's church held a weekend retreat there. This became an annual affair and also became daddy's annual vacation. Due to an operation, he missed going in 1971 but last summer he went for a day and a night when one of the dear souls at the church offered to take him and help him get around. I believe daddy faced death more peacefully in the fall having had that last chance to go to HIS camp.

What I remember best about my daddy was his great love for and interest in people. He never met a person that he didn't find interesting, and anyone who met him and talked with him never forgot him for that reason. During the week that I stayed with mother after the funeral, a memorial marker salesman came to the door. During the course of the conversation, he told us that he had sold fertilizer after he got out of high school, then he said,"whenever I came here Mr. Miller and I would have some great talks. I'll never forget him". This was typical of how daddy's love for people seemed to communicate itself to those he met.

At his funeral I could hear his voice mingling with our as we sang and recited our declaration of faith. At first I told myself I was hallucinating, but then I knew this is one way previous memories live on. Whenever the family gathers round the piano back home to sing the great hymns, his voice will join ours.

The minister's talk at the funeral was not a listing of daddy's accomplishments. He said every person needs a self he can live with, important work to do and a God to serve. Over 300 people came to the funeral to honor this simple farmer who loved the Lord with all his heart and his neighbor as himself.

Childhood memories

I was born in the "front" bedroom of my parent's home west of Enid, OK--six miles west and 1 3/4 mile north of the highway patrol, the corner of Van Buren and Owen K. Garriot. My mother named me Rose Marie because she had read a story where a character was named that and decided it was a pretty name. My parents were Retta Barge and Lewis Benedict Miller. I appeared shortly after harvest was completed on July 10, 1922. They had been married just over five years (May 12, 1917) and already had two children: Lewis Wesley (Feb 8, 1919) and Ruby Mae (Feb. 2, 1921). Ruby Mae was only 17 mo old at the time but was already quite the big sister. I'm told that when I was just 10 days old she discovered I had woken from my nap and she proceeded to take me out to mother. She had her arms under mine and had me clasped tightly to her. Mother had a few moments of panic but reports that I was delived to her safely.

Mother nursed me as was the custom, eventually supplementing this with oatmeal, mashed carrots, mashed potatoes, etc. My exalted position as the baby of the family lasted mearly two years until the birth of my brother, Lester Christopher, on June 7, 1924. Eventually there were eight children in the family: another boy, Dale Ross, April 21, 1926, Bonnie Lea, Dec. 10, 1927, Glen Orville, Feb. 4, 1931, and Betty Jean, Sept. 10, 1932. Inevitably there were groupings in the family. I became a part of the three "big kids". Then there were "the boys" and finally "the little kids". Bonnie came to resent being grouped with the little kids--perhaps because she was more than 2 years older than Glen--perhaps because she resented being ignored by Lester and Dale who were ususally good buddies and needed no little sister tagging along.

I don't remember Lester and Dale's birth. I suppose the big kids were taken up to Grandma Miller's as usual. I remember Dale as a toddler. It would have been the winter of 26-27 and mother had lined a big wooden box (36" x 36" by 24" deep) with old comforts and placed it near the pot-bellied stove in the dining room so that he would be warm and safe from active older siblings.

I remember staying at Grandma's for one birth and it must have been Bonnie's. We always went to Grandma's every Sunday afternoon (why did we call it"Grandma's"?), either by car or buggy depending on the weather and road conditions. But we were Never left there for grandma to care for, except that time. It got dark, and still the folks hadn't come for us. Grandma fed us, bedtime came, I was so sleepy. Finally Daddy and Lewis Wesley came and announced that we had a new baby sister. it flitted thru my mind "where did she come from?". Seems like I asked Wesley. Anyway I asked somebody and they said the doctor brought her. The next week when the doctor came to see mother, he had his little black bag with him and I decided that's how he brought Bonnie but I still wondered how he knew to bring her to our house.

Grandparents

My mom's paternal grandfather was born in 1854 and grandmother in 1860

Grandparents

Because we lived just 1 1/2 miles from my paternal grandparents, many childhood memories revolve around them. They were very OLD as I first remember them. Grandpa Miller would have been in his early 70's and Grandma 6 years younger. Going up to grandpa's house was a regular Sunday afternoon routine which we eagerly awaited. Perhaps grandma's habit of bringing out graham crackers or cookies had something to do with it. Grandpa always had peppermints or horehound candies in his pocket for good little children. We loved to explore their big two story house. Going up the back stairs was a bit spooky on cloudy days but that was the shortest way to the room where old funny papers and magazines were stored. The big back porch contained many interesting relics, including an old pump organ. We might go to the shed, climb up in the old surrey and pretend to take a trip; or play hide and seek in and around the "old house", shed and chicken house. We were a bit afraid of grandpa's big horses so we mostly steered clear of the barn except in summer when the horses were in the pasture.

Grandpa kindly tolerated the antics of the eight of us. Perhaps in us he relived the growing years of his own nine children. I can see him still in his rocking chair by the old wood stove in winter or sitting on the edge of the porch in summer with a fly swatter in his hand. Grandma seemed to love each of us and enjoyed holding the babies. I knew her as a gentle, quiet woman with snow white hair. It was hard to imagine how hard she must have worked when the children were all at home.

My mother's parents were in their early 50's when I first remember them. Their farm was a long way away, at least 30 miles. On our infrequent journeys to their house we had to start early in the morning to be sure to arrive in time for grandma's good dinner. Her house always smelled of delicious food. Maybe we were just very hungry after that long trip. I thought nobody's fried chicken tasted as good as Grandma Barge's. And her burnt sugar cakes would melt in your mouth. But before we could eat, grandma asked the blessing, which was sure to be longer than anybody elses.With that platter of chicken under my nose I couldn't help but be impatient.

Grandpa Barge was a big tease, so much so that I often avoided him to protect my feelings. He didn't mean to hurt us but he did. Grandpa was a big man--tall and heavy set, slow and deliberate in his actions, a hard worker but a trial to Grandma, who was very quick in everything. We enjoyed our visits to their house, especially the toys and dress-up clothes which grandma kept in an upstairs room and kept us occupied all afternoon.

If our teenage aunts were home, their boyfriends might pay a call and we'd get to go for a walk with them. How they put up with us, I don't know.

I always though my grandma's fried chicken was the best in the world and loved her home made pies. She must have learned all that from her own mother, of course. Sadly I don't think my mom inherited that skill so much, or maybe she just got sick of cooking by the time I can remember. I remember her saying that she and her sister were the ones who made the pies for the farm hands when she was growing up, so she was probably too "pied out" by the time I came around. I remember yummy cakes and cookies, though, and she made the best turkey stuffing ever. Oh, and fudge.

Mini-Biography

I had some painting done and lost track of mom's "stuff". Found it again so here's an update for those who may not have known her.

March 20, 2010

I was born July 10, 1922, on a farm west of Enid, OK, daughter of Lewis B. and Retta (Barge) Miller. I attended Free Home School and Emerson Junior High School. I graduated from Enid High School in 1939 and from Phillips University in 1943.

Following graduation I taught at Carrier High schhool. Then I worked for the George E. Failing Company until my marriage to Bill Shaklee on February 24, 1946, in the First Medthodist Church, Enid.

We lived in Ames, Iowa, for two years where I taught Freshman English at the Iowa State University. After two years in Champaign and Urbana, Illinois, we moved to Maryland where we lived in Riverdale, Eastpines, and New Carrollton before returning to Enid in 1976. In August 1992 we moved to Epworth Villa in Oklahoma City.

I was a life-long member of the Methodist Church. I sang in the choir, taught Sunday school classes and participated in the women's organizations. I served two terms as president of the United Methodist Women, first in Lanham, Maryland and then in Enid.

I was active in civic affairs and in the Parent-Teachers Association. I was a member of the American Association of Retired Persons, National Association of Retired Federal Employees, Lioness Club, Vernon Extension Homemaker's Club, Republican Women's Club, League of Women Voters, Young Women's Christian Association, and Daughters of the American Revolution.

In Epworth Villa I was active in the Ceramics Interest Group, sang in the Villa Choir, taught Sunday School classes and was active in the Quail Springs United Methodist Women Circle which met regularly in Epworth Villa.

Of course, I think she left out the most important part, having 4 great children, but that's just my opinion. She died on Dec 5th, 2011 at the age of 89.