He Will Always Be The Father Of The Year For Me

 

Riding "Tony" with my father, Glenn Millwee

To us, our father, was one of the last great Okla. cowboys. He loved horses, raising cattle,  family, storytelling, funny quotes, and all things rodeo. His favorite horses were Tony, Old Blue - who really was kind of bluish grey, and Cyclone, who would throw everyone but Daddy... and sometimes he would even throw Daddy. For the sake of time and space, I will leave out the stories related to the horses, except to say that Cyclone deserved his name and since Daddy's death, every time Hollywood releases a new family horse movie I am sad there's another movie he would have loved. He came along after the great cattle drives and probably never slept on the ground in a bedroll around a campfire, although he did have to sleep under a tarp in the daylight during hay baling season and there were times he had to sleep in the stall with his animals at a stock show. None of those experiences were particularly comfortable and were a contributing factor in our family never going on camping trips. 

Daddy had no use for poultry. He not only raised beef, he preferred eating beef. When I was about 9 years old, the rules for dairy farms changed and chickens were no longer allowed on dairy farms, in an attempt to get control over the salmonella outbreaks plaguing Okla. farmers. Being one that hated plucking chicken feathers, this made me happy. I bet  Daddy was even happier, because he didn't like to eat chicken and we probably ate less of it when Mother and Grandie Millwee weren't buying a hundred baby chicks apiece to raise for cooking purposes. 

My Aunt Lena Mae at a family chicken coop

Daddy advertised his feelings for the beef industry by always making sure his pickup truck displayed National Cattleman's Association bumper stickers, such as "Eat More Beef".  Mike's favorite was "Help The Beef Industry, Run Over A Chicken". My personal favorite sticker of all time was "Eat More Beef, The West Wasn't Won On Salads". 

As mentioned, one of his best skills was storytelling. 

On vacation in Texas. My Aunt Billie is holding me. Daddy to right.

I guess my sisters and I thought he had a pretty 

exciting life. He was always coming into the house with a new story, or he would share them while driving us to town. Where to start? Let's see...There was the time he had a pickup wreck with a horse in the back and the horse jumped out over the pickup. I'm not sure, but I think that was the time the person he collided with was his insurance agent. 

                                                           

Another time, there was a house on the lease across the road that the family had moved from suddenly. The teenage daughter had covered her bedroom walls with movie magazine pictures of Elvis Presley and when they moved, Daddy said that the family went off and left those pictures. We could not imagine this. First of all, why would you want to paper your walls with Elvis, but if you were going to go to that trouble, wouldn't you want to take them with you when you left? Then there was the time he was driving a tractor on the old Hartwell place south of Oney and a tornado touched down across the property line northwest of where he was plowing. Did he go hide, did he get off that tractor? No he did not. He just sat on the tractor and watched the tornado. When Mother asked him why he didn't get off and go somewhere safe, he asked, "What was I supposed to do, hide under the tractor?" 

At one of the many family reunions

He also loved old family stories. At a family get together, a group of his aunts were sitting and talking about some people that he didn't know. Finally his curiosity got the best of him and he asked what branch of the family they were discussing. They explained they weren't talking about family; they were talking about their soap opera that they followed faithfully. He was shocked; he could not believe his aunts even watched soap operas.

He had great common sense and a philosopher's approach to life,

A long ago birthday at the "chicken coop house".

but he could be funny in getting his point across.  If one of us were complaining, his response might be, "You'd probably gripe if we beat you with a brand new rope." Or the other companion statement, "You'd gripe if we beat you with a brand new board." Of course, there were never any beatings. Daddy did have a couple of bad habits.  He was always covering every Kleenex box and  paper scrap available with his math figures related to crops and cattle. The other habit was a bit more inconvenient. I think at one time or other he drove off and left every one of us somewhere. I really think he was just so preoccupied with all his farming & ranching obligations, and thinking about everything he needed to get done, that it was hard for him to remember mundane things like picking up various family members.                                           

                                               1975 Oklahoma Farm Family of the Year

It is difficult to sum up someone in a few paragraphs. You have to leave out so much that seems essential and important. Daddy did lots of wonderful things. He was both Oklahoma Farmer Rancher of the Year and the reason we were even in the running for Oklahoma Farm Family of the Year.  He received an OSU award that got his picture on a wall in the College of Agriculture at Stillwater, he was a past president of Rotary, and he was a faithful usher at church for many, many years. He was funny, he was enduring, and he was probably pretty much driven. He was well respected and well loved. He was a friend to many. He hardly said anything negative about anyone, except for one person he always referred to as “the sorriest white man that ever lived”. He had a phenomenal memory for history and dates. Not the kind you learned about in history class, but the dates important to a family, a church, a town. Since his death, there have been so many times someone has said, "I wish your Dad was here, he'd remember such and such."

In closing, I thought I would mention, that in his life between 1926-2005, he only lived in 4 houses, and 3 of them were on the same farm. He was only married to one woman, and he not only supported all 3 children he parented, he also sent them to college without the assistance of student loans or grants, and later paid for 3 nice weddings. His favorite dessert was apple pie. And he still hated chicken at the end of his life, although, he had made the concession to his wife and heart doctor, that he would eat it for the sake of his health. He was immensely proud of the fact that none of his daughters or grandchildren were divorced. 

 

The 1st house Daddy lived in. It was a small frame house on an Indian Lease, that 3 generations of my family farmed.  

Daddy's 2nd house, at the dairy farm

Towards the end of the depression, my grandfather bought a dairy farm. It eventually became the first electrical dairy in Western Okla. He built the white frame house in the upper left corner of this picture. The house was much larger than this picture shows, but this was the only handy picture of my grandparent's house that I think I have uploaded on my computer at this time. That small porch on the right side of the house led to the kitchen door and the door to my grandfather's office. I can still smell the smells of my grandfather's office in my memory. I figure it was probably some horrible chemical or fertilizer that has since been outlawed, but that smell a deep early childhood memory of standing in my grandfather's office. This picture was taken the first day of 2nd grade. Mother was big on teaching us about having traditions. One was that she always made us one new dress to start the fall semester in and another was that she would take our picture the 1st day of school. I was facing our house, which would have been behind my mother, who was taking my picture. Please note the paper bag of new school supplies. Yes, I'm so old, I went to school before backpacks. Oh, how I wished we'd had backpacks, instead of carrying that stack of books back and forth every day. 

 

The 3rd house Daddy lived in, also on the dairy farm.

The picture to the right is not my family, it's my Aunt Lena Mae's family, standing with our house in the background. As you can tell, there were 2 large yards, some vegetable gardens, and a road between my grandparent's and my parent's houses. Evidently, we used the houses as backdrops for a lot of our pictures. Although, we also have pictures with dairy barns and hay barns in the backdrop also. Our house was unique because in a previous life, it had been a chicken coop. As you can see, it no longer looked like a chicken coop. The picture taken above with the birthday cake was taken inside the chicken coop house. The year Daddy won Farmer Rancher of the Year at the Okla. State Fair, we knew he was a winner in the first line of the speaker's introduction, because he said, "this man started married life in a chicken coop". I still say, you would never have known it was a chicken coop. We had sheet rock, electricity, and plumbing - all the works. And that house worked, until Daddy decided he could afford to build Mother's dream house. 

Daddy's 4th house,  built in 1967 on the north side of the same section of land as the original dairy farm.

From my father's toddler days....

...to resting from long days of farming.So, in closing, this Father's Day, 2013, I'd like to say that everyone's life should count for something. Because of the examples and guidance my father gave his family, it has been a wonderful gift for our family that keeps on giving.

                     Elaine, aka, the Red Dirt Cowgirl

Busy, Busy, Busy, and Almost Nothing To Show For It

It seems like I've been constantly busy since Christmas. But, you'd never know it to look at my house, car, or anywhere else I've been. I've been doing those things that evidently look worse before they look better. I fell into this pattern the week after Christmas when I started putting my store booth together, and it's like those old TV commercials..."Help, I've fallen and I can't get up."

I thought it would be a simple matter to set up my consignment store booth. Boy, was I wrong. It's been a month and I'm still trying to make it look homey. However, I know I'll get there. I just haven't finished adding all the layers I need to. 

Mainly I've been recovering from my mother's downsizing project. She's starting to go thru everything she owns, which has significantly impacted my life, because as I have accepted things, I've had to decide where to put what. Also, I've taken on a photography organization project as a result. She had all her pictures of kids, grand-kids, great-grands, and the other photos of life that were in frames on the wall and in envelopes here and there. At first, she said for me to just divide them into pictures to return back to my sisters and for myself. But, it just seemed too soon to do that. So, I suggested that I put them in a scrapbook. I've already worked on it 3 different times and am not finished yet. However, she seems pleased with what I've done. Only thing is, this afternoon she said there's a bunch of pictures in the basement. Lordy, Lordy, I'm getting a sense of not getting finished with this project. So far I've almost filled up an 8 x 10 scrapbook that was empty when I started and finished filling up 2 of the 2x2 albums that were only about half full this time last week. 

All this has put me on my own investigative trail of going thru drawers to sort them and filling up plastic tubs with things Mother has given me. I would have probably made better progress if it hadn't been so bitterly cold. Darn that tendency of January to be cold. However, I have run across some fun things, such as this picture of my Great Grandmother Hartwell...in the only car she ever owned. According to our father, she was quite the gadabout. She even drove her family to Kansas one time to visit her son.

I loved going to her her place. By the time my sisters and I came along, she had built a little duplex in our town where she rented the other side to her good friend Alice. The two sides of the duplex could be reached via a little back porch type hallway that was reached thru the back doors off the kitchens. She was always a very practical person, I remember telling her when I was very little that I needed a drink of water. She asked me what the magic words were. I think I looked at her like she was crazy, and told her there was no such thing as magic. She finally explained, the magic words were please and thank you. 

I also found this picture of my Great Great Grandmother, Almedia Morrison with her Sunday School Class. It was taken in 1931 in front of her house, which later burned - something I have in common with her. We had a house fire in 1981, something I NEVER want to happen again. 

As I reflect back on the past month, it occurs to me I probably do have more to show for it than I had previously thought. I just need to step it up and get more done.
Until later, Elaine, aka, the Red Dirt Cowgirl

Habits and Other Decisions

Heavens to Betsy, I knew I needed to start writing again, but I didn't realize how out of touch I was. It's been a busy year. Two major surgeries, one the week of Valentine's Day and the other on Halloween - I like to live it up when I have my medical problems...and I think I'm finally getting back to normal, whatever that is. I really didn't want to have the second surgery, but it was kind of one of those have to things and it was cheaper to get it over with since I'd already met my insurance deductible for the year. So there you have it. What was bad, is when the nurse called to schedule the 2nd one and she said, Oct. 31st., I thought, "that sounds familiar". But, it still didn't occur to me it was a nationally busy day. However, it's not like I have to take 2 doz. cookies or cupcakes to 3 classrooms at school anymore, so it didn't really make that much difference. Plus, it's been a busy year between surgeries...helping with a Senior Adult and an After-school programs at church, and my big news: I'm going to be opening a booth at a nearby consignment store. More about that after I can post pictures in a week or so.

Other than the fact it's 2 days before Christmas, it's all calm on the western front. Except, this slight problem. We decided yesterday, 3 days before Christmas that we needed a chimney sweep. Probably not the best time to engage one. At least, not for any of the ones we called. So, I have dug out all the electric heaters I could find in the closets, until the chimney sweeps of western Oklahoma have celebrated Christmas. Our 2 youngest will be in from college later today. They will probably decide they need to go visit their grandmother after they experience the true temperature of our house without the wood burning stove. We had run out of wood and I had gone and bought a rick from this nice man selling it nearby.  I knew it didn't seem to be burning as hot as the last wood, but thought we'd just gotten a hold of some wood that didn't burn hot. Luckily, my husband decided to do some internet research. Hip hip hooray for the internet, he probably saved us from a house fire. It turns out that's one of the signs you need to clean the chimney. As we'd had a house fire 31 years ago at Christmas, I'd already decided I didn't want to do THAT again. (That was an electrical fire.) In closing, I'll share a couple of favorite Christmas time pictures from the church we attend. 

  

Merry Christmas and hope everyone stays warm. 

Elaine, aka, the Red Dirt Cowgirl

Tornadoes

Yes, we are just a few short weeks shy of Thanksgiving...but we had ourselves another little tornado scare last night. I don't personally have any pictures. Even if I had been stupid enough to leave my house and try to take some, our house was in the "rain wrapped" part of the storm and I wouldn't have been able to capture any. No, this little chicken was making her way to her to the basement. Plus, since our electricity was off, I had no way of tracking the storm anymore and had to assume it could be coming our way. After we finally got down there in place, I realized I had left my purse in the kitchen. Yes, of course you take your purse to the storm cellar. Think about it, it would be bad enough to recreate your life, without having to start all over without a driver's license and checkbook. We've been told it crossed Highway 9, just about 4 1/2 miles south of our house at that red dirt road that I like to take pictures of. Then, it went at an angle towards the Fort Cobb Lake, where it lifted up a bunch of the lake in a big ol waterspout and dropped it back down again. They didn't say what part of the lake this happened on, but it's not a very long lake and we're only about 2 blocks from the lake...so I'm guess it was probably closer than when it was at the red dirt road. Anyway, that's too close for comfort for me. The weathermen said this happened because we were having an unseasonably warm day, combined with all the other factors you need for a tornado.

I thought it was going to totally miss us and go more east than north (we're north). This is because I broke my long standing "weather rule". Instead of following my weather rule of changing back and forth between the 3 Oklahoma channel, we were just watching one channel. Luckily, my daughter-in-law was watching a different channel where they were using words like Fort Cobb Lake, which was really important for our well-being. So, I will definitely go back to following my weather rule of watching all channels available. There are some great local pictures circulating taken from people that I guess were not in the "rain wrapped" part of our area. I'm going to see if someone will give me permission to post one of their pic's.

This has been quite the week for Oklahoma. Although, there have been other earthquakes previously in Oklahoma and I understand we're only about 40 miles from the fault at Meers, OK, we only felt our first earthquake Saturday night. That was really odd. I could hear a strange rumbling noise starting in our bedroom north of the living room, that ran through the house from north to south. As it moved towards the living room, going on through the garage on the south, my husband and I just looked at each other and said, "was that an earthquake?" My first thought was that were were raccoons running across the roof. As loud as it was, it would have had to be quite a herd. No I don't know what groups or families of the raccoon species is called.  (I've been pretty frustrated by raccoons lately.) Sure enough, it was, an earthquake, that is. The scary part - the epicenter was well over a hundred miles from our house. It turns out there's been 2 or 3 earthquakes in Oklahoma lately. Some people around here said they felt more aftershocks yesterday after the tornado, but I guess I was distracted. Maybe it was while I was in the basement while I was worrying about the snakes...and my purse. Yes, I forgot to mention, we found evidence of  a dead snake and another snake skin in the basement. And no, this was not the first time we've had snake trouble. We are getting ready to replace our roof and do some other minor home repairs. Finding the snake entryway is going to be at the TOP of the list. Finally, we got the text message from our daughter-in-law that told us it was safe to leave the storm shelter, so we were able to escape back to the house.