Our European Cruise

This was my second cruise in three weeks!

If you read my previous post, five of us guys went down the Arkansas River to Greenville, Mississippi.  We had been home for a week when Louise and I went on a cruise on the Seine River from Paris to Le Havre and back.

About a year ago, some friends from South Texas started talking about this trip.  Louise and I decided to join them and we bought our tickets.  As usual, I didn't do any trip planning until the day before (one of my traits which doesn't serve me well)!

We left Tulsa on October 10 and had an uneventful (read that "boring") trip to De Gaulle  Airport in Paris.  After the trip was over, Louise and I both told each other we would never fly across the pond again without at least Business Class seats!  Steerage is so cramped and uncomfortable that it's almost unbearable.

When we got to Paris, we discovered a somewhat major problem - our luggage hadn't made the flight.  We filled out the necessary paperwork and left for our ship.  For four days, Louise and I wore the same clothes we had flown in to Paris.  In fact, it got to be a standing joke on the ship that Edd and Louise were wearing their same clothes again!  I did manage to buy some underwear and socks a couple of days out.  By the way, French mens' underwear don't have flys but that's another story.  Finally, after four days our luggage caught up with us and we were happy campers!

The cruise line we were on, Vantage Travel, did all they could to make our trip enjoyable, as did Sandy and Gregg who were our group organizers.

Our ship, the River Venture, was a typical European river ship and held 138 passengers and the crew.  I think the crew numbered about 30.  One of the neatest things about a cruise like this is that you get to know a lot of people, most of the people on the ship, in fact.  There were 19 people in our group, only four of which Louise and I knew before the trip started.  By the end of the cruise, we were all good friends.

Our ship sailed from Paris to Le Havre and back.  As the crow flies, that's only a distance of about 120 miles.  As the Seine River meanders, and taking time for adventures, it took us 12 days for the round trip.

The list of things we got to see and do is too long to include in this blog but I'll hit just a couple of the highlights.  First, and most importantly, was the tour of Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery there.  It really is hard to imagine what happened there on June 6, 1944.  I would compare it to visiting the National Park at Gettysburg.

One thing that always stands out when we travel in Europe is how much older their culture is than ours.  We spent quite a bit of time touring cathedrals and other buildings which were built before Columbus discovered America.  It's hard to imagine!  We ate lunch one day at a Michelin rated restaurant in Rouen which was established in 1345!

We returned to Paris on October 20 and spent two days there at a dock within sight of the Eiffel Tower.  Paris was okay but we really enjoyed all the smaller villages we had seen along the river.  I did get a good picture of the Eiffel Tower, though.

Louise and I had a great time but, as we get older, we begin to worry about what might happen if we had health issues while traveling like this.  We aren't sure we will ever go to Europe again but, if we don't, this was a heck of a way to end our continental travels!

Another River Trip

I have no idea why we do things like this but four other guys and I just returned from a five day trip down the Arkansas River.

This was my third time down the river, having gone once in September, 2003, and again in August, 2005.  The first two trips were made with a good friend, Foster Harness.  Unfortunately, Foster is not around to make any more river trips.  I think he must have been looking down on us.

There were five of us in two boats.  In my boat was my son, Dan,and a good friend, R.B.  In the other boat was my brother, Milt, and his friend, Bill.  Dan was not going to be able to meet up with us until the next day.  We left last Wednesday, September 26, from Bluff Landing which is east of Broken Arrow about 10 miles on 71st Street.  Both times before, we left from this landing so that we could say we went through every lock on the Arkansas River.

We got off to a somewhat late start so, after cruising all day, we decided to spend the night at Applegate Marina on Kerr Reservoir near Sallisaw.  The operator of the marina was a most gracious man who offered to let us camp for the evening in his pavilion.  We had running water, electricity, and a bathroom.  It just doesn't get much better than that!

On Thursday, we cruised all day and went through several locks.  We decided to quit early, about 2:30, and found a place at Aux Arc Park near Ozark, Arkansas.  Again, we had water and electricity, along with a bath house which was a good 200 yard hike down the road.  Dan showed up with my truck and the boat trailer, which we left parked there for Louise and Teresa to pick up the following day.

To explain this a little better, let me stop here and tell you what our plan was.  The five guys were going to travel all the way to Greenville, MS.  My wife, Louise, and R.B.'s wife, Teresa, were going to leave home on Friday, pick up my truck and trailer wherever Dan left it, and then meet us in Little Rock on Friday evening.  On Saturday morning, the wives would travel to Greenville, MS, where we would meet and trailer the boats back to Oklahoma.

On Friday morning, the crew got up and headed downriver again.  The first stretch was Lake Dardanelle, a run of 51 miles.  At 30mph, that took a while.  Then, when we got to Dardanelle Lock, we ran into our first obstruction.  A barge tow had just started locking through and we had to wait about 2 1/2 hours to get through the lock.  This put us really behind schedule, since we were to meet the wives in Little Rock.

Finally, about 6:30 pm, we got to Rock Harbor Marina in Little Rock, and met up with the women, who had already gotten us checked in to their B&B.  We did go out to a restaurant to eat that night but the food wasn't a bit better than R.B. had been preparing on the river bank.

Saturday morning we said goodbye to the women and headed out again.  There was a lot of fog early so we didn't get a really early start.  We had a 13 mile run to the next lock where things really went sour.  We were behind a barge tow going downstream and, when he was finished, they locked through another barge tow heading upstream.  I don't remember how long we waited there (mostly because I consumed a large amount of whiskey) but it was a long time.

We wound up spending the night just below the Emmett Sanders Lock, No. 4, on a sand bar.  This was at Mile 66 and I had hoped to get to Mile 10, so we were behind schedule about 56 miles.  Sunday morning, everyone was ready to get home.  Although nothing was said, all the gear was packed and loaded in the boats by 7:30 am and we headed out again.  We had 66 miles left on the Arkansas River and about 40 miles on the Mississippi to get to Greenville.

At least on Sunday, we caught the locks better!  In fact, two of them were open when we got to them.  We finally got to Greenville about 2:00 pm and rendezvoused with Teresa and Louise.  Eight hours later, after a long drive, we got back home.

The burning question I ask myself is, would I do it again?  At 72, my old bones don't take sleeping on the ground as well as they used to.  I guess the answer is, we'll have to wait and see.  We saw a lot of amazing sights along the way and got to spend some precious time with friends and relatives.  All in all, it was an enjoyable trip.  Here is a picture that Dan took that pretty well sums it up.

Minnesota Fishing Trip - 2018

The group decided to do another Minnesota fishing trip but this time, instead of portaging into the boundry waters, we decided to take our boats and fish Lake Winnibigoshish.  Lake Winnie, as it is commonly called, is located in north central Minnesota near the town of Deer River.  Winnibigoshish means "dirty" water in Objibwe (the local native American tribe) but it is anything but dirty.  The water is crystal clear and you can see the bottom in most places.  Interestingly, it is an impoundment which dams up the Mississippi River whose start is Lake Itasca, about 60 miles to the west.

There were five in our group, only two of which went on the canoe trip last year.  R.B. and I had made that trip but we were looking forward to a somewhat safer, less stressful time.  R.B.'s friend since high school, Ronnie, was the third member of our team and he and R.B. supplied the boats.The fourth member was Clint, Ronnie's cousin, who lives in the Oklahoma City area.  Clint's friend, Denton, rounded out the group.

R.B. and I left Mannford about 8 am on Thursday, June 7, and the other three guys left Morrison about the same time.  The plan was to meet in Owatonna, Minnesota, go to Cabela's, for last minute items, then spend the night and caravan to Lake Winnie on Friday.  We were running late, however, and didn't get to Cabela's until the next morning.  We then drove the remaining 4 1/2 hours to our cabin at the Northland Lodge at the lake.

We fished hard Friday and caught a few walleyes, northerns, and largemouth bass but not a large number.  Saturday was a repeat of Friday with a few fish caught but not a lot.  Sunday was a rainout and we fished Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

All in all we caught six species of fish: walleyes, northerns, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, rock bass, and yellow perch.  Most of the bass and northerns were caught on artificial lures, the walleyes and yellow perch were caught on live bait.  Unlike in Oklahoma, leeches are a popular bait up there and I really like to fish them because they are extremely hardy and stay on the hook good.

Thursday morning the 14th, we got up early and headed for Oklahoma.  We drove all day and got back to Mannford about 9 pm.  That was a long haul!

My measure of a good trip is being able to say the next day that you would do it again.  I could say that about this trip although I would do a few things differently next time.  Certainly I would drink less whiskey - the five of us drank four gallons in six days!  I'm just beginning to recuperate.

The Vehicle Accident

An insurance claims adjuster told me once that the odds are you will have a minor accident every ten years and a major one every forty years.  I got my major one out of the way early, in 1967.

I was working as a welder's helper at National Tank Co. and was on my way home from work about 5:00 pm one December day.  I was in Fisher Bottom about three miles west of Sand Springs on Highway 51.  As I was often prone to do, I was "tailgating" the car in front of me.  Suddenly, he swerved into the bar ditch and there was a Mustang in my lane coming right at me!

Apparently, I thought I had a better chance of missing him by going left, because that's what I did.  Unfortunately, my maneuver wasn't successful and we collided.  The driver of the other car was Maurice Rogers McSpadden, a disc jockey for a local radio station, who went by the name "Boomer".  His car wound up on it's top in the bar ditch and my came to a stop on the highway, still right side up but badly damaged.  In fact, both cars were "totalled".

In those days, we didn't have EMT's or paramedics so the local funeral home ambulance showed up.  I sat in the front passenger seat holding my arm, which was broken, and McSpadden was on a stretcher in the back. I remember that the untrained attendant told the driver that he thought McSpadden was dead.  They transported us to what was then called Oklahoma Osteopathic Hospital (now OSU Medical Center).

Someone passing by the scene of the accident recognized my car and called Mom and Dad and told them about it.  On their way to the hospital, they had to pass by the cars, which were still there.  When Mom saw the shape my car was in, she was sure that I must be dead!

Later that evening, the highway patrolman who had investigated the crash came to the hospital to talk with me.  I told him what had happened and that coincided with his initial thoughts.  While I was laying there with a broken arm, however, he did chew me out for not wearing my seatbelt!  I was surprised to find out that, while McSpadden had suffered numerous facial injuries, he was not critically wounded.

I had to have surgery to repair my arm since the break was where it could not be set.  However, I had no problems with either it or the follow up surgery to remove the pins that the doctors had put in.

The accident did have a significant impact on my life.  It provided me with the means and motivation to go back to school at Oklahoma State.  I had dropped out in 1966 after two years of having fun!  The settlement I received from the wreck, $10,000, was a huge sum back then, at least to me.  It was enough to pay my tuition and living expenses till I graduated.  The motivation certainly was helped by having been a welder's helper for a couple of years.

I never talked to Boomer McSpadden after the accident.  I always wondered whether the wreck had as much impact on him as it did on me.  Some 20 years later, my wife, Louise, and I were at the Tulsa State Fair and KVOO radio had a booth there.  We walked into the booth and there he stood.  I walked up to him, introduced myself and Louise, and told him how we were linked.  He just stood there like he was unable to speak and after about 30 seconds of awkwardness, we turned around and left.  To this day, I don't know whether he was afraid I was angry at him or whether he was traumatized by hearing who I was.

Mr. McSpadden died in 1999 at the age of 54.  Did our accident somehow shorten his life?  It seems that the older I get, the more questions I want to answer.

Wilson Ranch History

The Wilson Ranch was founded in Archer County, Texas, in the mid-1880's.  It was an offshoot of the  130,000 acre 099 Ranch, owned by Mr. J. H. Stone.  Mr. Stone divided the ranch into three parts and Luke F. Wilson, an investment banker in Kansas City, bought one of those parts.

My grandfather, Milton Walker "Cap" Alexander, began working for Luke Wilson in Archer County as a cowboy.  In about 1900, Mr. Wilson purchased several thousand acres in Creek County, Oklahoma, and Cap brought a herd of 5000 steers to Mannford from Archer City.  He stayed in Mannford and in 1906 married Mary May Stephens who was running a laundry in Mannford.  He continued to work for Wilson until about 1920, when he started his own small ranch, located near where Coyote Trail crosses State Hwy. 51 today.

Little is known about Luke Wilson at this time.  He was born in 1842 in Palestine, Illinois to Isaac Newton Wilson and Hannah Decker.  The elder Mr. Wilson was a prominent farmer in the area and had migrated there from Virginia, as did many people of the time.  Luke married Sarah McCrory in Illinois in 1869 and shortly after that, they moved to Kansas City.  Sarah's parents were also well-to-do farmers in Illinois.  Luke and Sarah lived in Kansas City for the rest of their lives.

Luke Wilson's nephew, Glenn Wilson, was the head of the cattle operation and Cap Alexander reported to him.  Glenn lived in Archer City while his uncle Luke resided in Kansas City.  Cap's son, Tommy (my father), remembered both Luke and Glenn from his childhood and talked of them often.

Allen Parmer was the original foreman of the ranch in Archer County.  He had been a member of Quantrill's Raiders during the Civil War and was considered a mean "hombre" by most of the people who worked for him.  He did get backed down, however, by a woman with a shotgun.  He went to drive Mrs. Matthews, the nester, out of her dugout home and she wouldn't be driven out.  She apparently was regarded as a heroine for her actions at the time.

John McCluskey was another of the Wilson Ranch people.  My father referred to him as Uncle John and he spent quite a bit of time traveling back and forth between Archer City and Mannford.  Little is known of him today except that he apparently never married or had any children.

Tom Porter also got his start on the Wilson Ranch in Mannford.  He had come from southeastern Oklahoma as a thirteen year old and found himself being raised by a Zickefoose family in the Keystone area.  He was enrolled at Keystone School in the fourth grade.  By about 1910, he had gone to work for Cap Alexander as a cowboy.  DNA results lately have shown that he, not Cap Alexander, was the true father of Tommy Alexander.

Tom Porter was apparently asked to move to the main Wilson Ranch location in Archer County, since he was located there in 1917 when he registered for the draft.  In 1929, Tom married Margaret Cox and they had two children.  His daughter, Minna Lo, is 96 years old and lives in Tulsa today.  Tom worked on ranches and in the oil patch for many years before opening a saddlery in Seymour, Texas.  He was running the saddlery in 1974 when he died.

Another ranch hand on the Wilson Ranch at Mannford was Herman Weer.  He was the son of John Weer and Elizabeth Yakel (from Indiana and Illinois, respectively), who had migrated from that area to Labette County, Kansas, to the Tulsa area.  Herman was, in fact, born in Labette County in 1887.  Herman's father, John, tried in 1896 to be added to the Dawes Rolls as a Creek Indian but was denied.  It is doubtful that he had a legitimate claim to be added.  Interestingly however, his son Frank married Edna McIntosh, a full blood Creek Indian.  The McIntoshes were one of the most prominent Creeks in Indian Territory.

Herman Weer died in 1978 and is buried in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.  No evidence exists that he ever married or had children.

The cooks on the Wilson at Mannford were David Casper "Buster" Henkell and his wife, Sarah Ihrig Henkell.  I can remember Buster coming by our house to visit my father when I was a child.  Sarah was my father's first cousin and a sister to Ernest "Twenty" Ihrig, a long time resident of the Mannford area.  Buster died in 1957 at the age of 69 and Sarah died in 1986 at the age of 85.

Ernest Ihrig was another of the early cowboys on the Wilson Ranch at Mannford.  He was born in Indian Territory, the son of Marion Francis Ihrig and Mahala Stephens Ihrig.  "Aunt Mahala", as we called her, was a sister to my grandmother, Mary May Stephens Alexander.  Ernest, or "Twenty", was Cap Alexander's assistant foreman on the ranch and the two were usually seen together.

The last cowboy of interest on the Wilson Ranch was at the Archer County location.  He was Lee McMurtry and is presumed to be a relative to Larry McMurtry, the author and screenwriter.  Larry was born and raised in Archer City and still owns two bookstores there.

I am continuing to study the Wilson Ranch history and I'll let you know further as I progress.

Fishing in the Boundry Waters

My friend, R.B., and I were planning our next epic adventure, a fishing trip to Lake Winnebigoshish  in Minnesota, when it dawned on me that I hadn't documented our trip last year.  It was during that period when I couldn't seem to ever find time to write.  So here is the story.

In early 2017, R.B. asked me if I wanted to go on a fishing trip with him and three other guys.  They were planning to fish the boundary waters in northern Minnesota.  I said, "Sure!" so we began planning the trip.  Planning, of course, involved several meetings at restaurants for food and drink.

On the appointed day, Saturday, June 10, 2017, we left Tulsa in my motor home.  The five people going were R.B., his son, Bobby, James, Travis, and myself.  The first night we drove to Owatonna, Minnesota, a distance of about 670 miles, and stayed in the parking lot of a Cabela's store there.  Of course, we went into the store and spent a boat load of money on fishing and camping gear.  The next morning, we left early and drove on to Ely, Minnesota, another 300 miles.

When we arrived in Ely, we met the outfitter that R.B. had contacted for gear and made plans to begin our canoe trip the next morning.  We spent that night, our second night out, in the motor home.  We got up early the next morning, Monday, and found a wonderful place in Ely to eat breakfast.  After filling our bellies with biscuits and gravy, we went back to the outfitter's place where we had parked the motor home and began to unload our gear.  As is usual, we had way more "stuff" than we needed and left some of it there.

Unloading our Gear in Ely

The outfitter dropped us off at a landing on Fall Lake about six miles northeast of Ely.  We loaded our canoes and began our journey.  I hadn't been in a canoe in about 60 years so it took a little while to get comfortable!  Our canoe trip took about five hours and included two portages of a quarter mile each.  We went from Fall Lake to Newton Lake and then into Pipestone Bay.  Once on Pipestone, you could, if you so desired, canoe into Canada.

Each portage involved dragging our canoe onto shore, unloading all the gear in them, hauling it all along with the canoe to the next lake, and then reloading everything back into the canoes.  These usually took about three round trips to get all our gear moved.

Bobby and Travis in the Canoe

By the time we got to our selected campsite, it was about four o'clock and we quickly got our camp set up.  We were the only humans on the little island in the middle of this lake and that made it kind of eerie!

For the next four days, we fished for walleye, pike, and smallmouth bass.  Most of our fishing was done from the bank, right in camp, because the weather wasn't good enough to spend much time fishing from the canoes.
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Edd With a Smallmouth

Sleeping arrangements were hammocks strung between trees.  I was absolutely amazed at how well we slept and stayed dry in them.  On two of the nights, we had thunderstorms with lots of lightening and rain and I never got a drop of water in my hammock!  In the evenings, of course, we sat around the campfire, ate Nutter Butter cookies and drank copious quantities of whiskey.  We didn't catch a lot of fish but everyone caught some and everyone had a good time.

On Friday morning, June 16, we got up, fixed our breakfast over the campfire, and loaded the canoes for the trip back to our take out spot.  The wind was howling and we were all a little apprehensive about the trip.  As the morning progressed, the winds got stronger and stronger and we sure were glad to see the landing spot in sight.

By the time we got checked in with the outfitter and took a shower (which we all needed badly), we decided to load up the motor home and drive all the way home overnight.  We left Ely about 2 p.m. and, after a stop in Joplin for breakfast, arrived home about 8:30 Saturday morning.

I've been on several trips like this and, for most of them, the day I returned, I would say I would never go back.  That was not the case with this trip - when we go home I wold have turned around and done it again that day!

Misadventures as Art

A while back Louise and I were down in the shop and I showed her my "collection of shame", parts which had been damaged due to my negligence or stupidity.  A couple of days later, she asked me if she could have some of them for a project.

I had no idea what the project was but I said "yes".  After 48 years of marriage, I know the correct answers to most of her questions.  What she did was to use these as art to decorate our bathroom!

I must say that it is a very unusual choice of items to use as art.  I must describe each of these items.

On the upper left is a 32 penny spike which I accidentally left in the yard south of our house.  Years later, our neighbor, Roy, was doing us a favor by mowing that area.  He ran over the spike, which was at least 75 yards from the house, and threw it through our glass block window in the bathroom.  It traveled across the bathroom into the water closet where it left a deep gash in the sheet rock wall and landed on a small glass table in front of the stool.  Roy felt horrible but I was the one who left it in the yard and he was mowing our grass after all.

The nut in the lower left box was what was left from a trailer hitch which I grossly under designed.  We were returning home from a fishing trip to Lake Taneycomo in Missouri when the hitch failed, letting my boat and trailer come loose and almost roll over.  Ironically, my insurance agent, who was also my fishing buddy was following me at the time and almost had a heart attack!  The nut, which was holding the hitch ball on took the brunt of the incident and was ground almost nearly in two.  It took weeks to get all the asphalt out of the boat!

The large center frame holds a bent connecting rod from our '46 Chevy cabover, known as Butt Ugly.  I drove it to work at Tulsa Winch one day and a rain storm came through.  Well, the engine sits in the open behind the cab but I had no idea that that much water could get through the air cleaner!  When I went out that evening to start the truck, it turned over about twice, fired and then locked up.  The cylinder that that rod was in was full of water and it "hydrauliced", bending the rod.  A week later and some mechanic work and it was good as new.

The item in the right box is the only one not caused by my stupidity but I found it very unusual.  My neighbor, T.J., asked me to replace the PTO seal on his old Ford 600 tractor.  When I got the old seal out, I looked at it and was amazed!  The seal had the original Ford logo on it and the wiper on the seal was made of rawhide.  Early seals used rawhide as the wiper but I had never seen one.

If you get a chance, come by and look at the museum in our bathroom.

How Far Would You Go For A Coney?

Today I was searching around in my blog and I searched for "coney".  Not a single use of this word popped up.  So I've decided to change that!

For the past three or four years, I, along with friends Larry and Hugh, have had coney outings about once a month.  Normally,we would meet at Larry's wife's place of business, BS for a while and then drive to Dean's Coney Island in Sand Springs.

Well, things have changed recently.  Hugh moved farther away, down south of OKC, and Louise and I spent the winter in the Rio Grande Valley.  So coney outings have become less frequent.  The other day, as we were preparing to come home, I decided to set up a new coney lunch but in Hugh's neighborhood, Oklahoma City.

Larry and he both agreed that this sounded like a splendid idea so we planned to do it on Friday after I got home on Thursday.  Hugh found us a place in the City so we left Mannford about 10:00 a.m. and were going to meet Hugh at 11:40.

We arrived at the designated time and discovered that we had found coney nirvana!  This place has been in business since 1924 and, in spite of having the walls covered in OU memorabilia, it had all the charm a downtown coney place should have.

The name of the place is simply "Coney Island" and it's located at 428 W. Main Street.  One of our customs during our coney runs is to take pictures of the food and this trip was no exception.

This is me wolfing down one of my coneys.  Hugh and Larry better take pictures quickly if they want to capture more than just the paper lining in my basket!

So that's the story!  Yes, we did drive about 200 miles round trip and spend about five hours just to eat a coney.  Might oughta do it again next week!

Harry Wood Nash

Harry Wood Nash, 1869-1902

(My great grandfather)

Harry Wood Nash was born in Abington, Massachusetts, a southern suburb of Boston, in 1869. He was the oldest of three children born to Edward Everett Nash and Hannah Williams Nash.

The Nash's were long time Boston area residents – both Edward's father, Nathaniel Nash Jr. and his grandfather, Nathaniel Nash Sr., were from Massachusetts. Nathaniel Nash Sr. was born about 1780 but his birth location is not known nor is his ancestry. However, the Nash surname was most commonly found in Great Britain.

Edward Nash was a carpenter by trade and his wife, Hannah, was a homemaker. In addition to Harry, they had Frederick William Nash, born in 1872, and Neva Nash, born in 1875. Both Fred and Neva were born in the Akron, Ohio area, since Edward and Hannah had moved there shortly after 1870.

Fred was a metallurgist and mining engineer and we know from passport records that he traveled to Mexico at least once to pursue his occupation. Fred married Violet Irene Preston in 1901 in Denver, and together they had two daughters, Virginia and Consuelo. Violet was born in Denver in 1877. Before 1910, Fred and Neva moved to San Diego and stayed there the rest of their lives.

Family lore has it that Fred owned a company, Bullfrog Marble and Mining Quarry, and was killed in a car “accident”. His partner in the company then stole it from Violet and her daughters and left them penniless.

Neva was an “old maid” school teacher and never married. Although she was born in Ohio, she moved back to her father's home area, Massachusetts, and taught school there for many years before retiring to St. Petersburg, Florida. At least once she traveled to Cuba on holiday.

Although Harry was born in Massachusetts, he was taken by his father and mother to Ohio when he was about two years old. Because the 1890 Census was lost, we don't know where the family was in that era. There is no evidence that Edward or Hannah ever traveled to Colorado so Harry may have struck out on his own.

As we know, Harry married Susan Pearl Miller in 1891, in the Trinidad, Colorado area. At the time, he was 22 and she was 14, four months short of her 15^th birthday. It is likely that Fred followed his older brother, Harry, to Colorado since he married Violet there in 1901.

Harry and Susan had three children, Arletta Florence born in 1893, Edward Everett (his grandfather's namesake) born in 1894, and Sedelia born in 1897. All three of these children were born in Las Animas County in the Trinidad area.

In June, 1898, when their youngest child Sedelia was about 8 months old, Susan deserted Harry and moved to Pitkin County in the Aspen area. The whereabouts of the three children during this period are unknown. In July, 1899, Harry was awarded a divorce from Susan on the grounds of desertion. No mention of the three children was made in the divorce papers; it is assumed that they had been abandoned.

In July, 1900, Susan married Richard Leace Young in Grand Junction, Colorado. She and Richard had another ten to fifteen children, the exact number is unknown. In her obituary, it was stated that she was the mother of eighteen children. Some time around 1924, she divorced Richard and married James Adair. They had no children together. Susan died in 1939 in Twin Falls, Idaho at the age of 62.

At the time of Harry's divorce from Susan, he had moved to the Denver area, in Arapahoe County. He died in 1902 at the age of 33 and is buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver. The cause of death was listed as pneumonia. At the time of death, Harry's occupation was listed as “labourer”.

Winter's End

Winter is about to yield to Spring and Louise and I are planning our return to Oklahoma.  For the past several years (we think about eleven) we have spent the winter in the Rio Grande Valley trying to escape bad weather.

As far as weather goes, this winter was not great but tolerable.  We did have a couple of days which saw low temperatures in the high 20's.  And, in the past few days, we've had a couple which exceeded 90 degrees.  The weather was not as good as last winter but much better than in Oklahoma.

I seem to do my best genealogy down here.  In early February, I wrote about a breakthrough in my work, finding the background on my great grandfather, Harry Nash.  While there is still a lot of work to do, I now know what direction to head in.

Louise and the dogs had a good winter as well.  She, like I, is getting somewhat homesick, however, and we are anxious to get back to Mannford.  We will travel to Georgetown, Texas, for a couple of days; Louise wants to go to the IKEA store there.  By the way, a bad joke I've heard is that IKEA is Swedish for particleboard.

When we leave Georgetown, we will go to Sanger, Texas, and spend the evening with our good friends Don and Lynn, then head home.

I don't know how full-time RVer's do it;  I'm ready to get home.

History of Mannford High School

I ran across this the other day and felt that it was important enough to be reproduced and put in my blog.  Unfortunately, I don't know who to give credit to for writing it in the first place or digitizing it.  At any rate, I noticed that my uncle, Albert Winans, was one of the first graduates of Mannford High, in 1926.

History of Mannford High School

In the early years of Mannford before Oklahoma ever became a state the people felt the need of a school for the children so in 1902 posts were set on the site of the present Methodist Church. A box building was constructed of 1 x 12’s around these posts and covered with a shingle roof. The floor was dirt and pine was nailed together to make the seats. This building remained in existence for two years. The first summer Miss Ella Williams (Mrs. Devasior) was the teacher. Some of her first pupils were Johnny Finley, Bill Lust, and Dot Wheeler.

In 1904 a two-story brick building was built on the present site of Mannford School. This building contained four rooms, and in 1905, when the roll-call was counted, it showed that forty students were attending the new school. Some of the students who attended were the Mitchell children, the Coonrod girls and Raymond Holmes.

In 1920 consolidation was begun and the first two districts that were taken in were the East and West Basin and the Cross-L district. The third district to be taken in was the Evans district.  Consolidation was eventually finished in 1921.

In 1921 the early building was torn down and another brick building was built and High School curriculum was added in 1925. R. E. Holmes was one of the board members at this time. The school had only two buses at this time. They were wooden bodies built on new chassis in Oilton. Two more were added later on.

In 1926 there were four senior graduates. They were Kathleen Lovett, Lucina Ruhl, Leroy Winans, and Albert Winans.

B. F. Ellis was the superintendent in 1927. There were six graduates that year. This includes Raymond West, Bennie Bellis, Ola Ogden, Creta Sims, Glen Tate and Omer Sanders.

In 1928 with Miss Moore as their sponsor the following graduated from Mannford High school. Furl Tate, Iva Gill, Lucy Beaver, Florence Nantx, Emma Sims and Glen Lemaster.

The senior graduates of 1929 were Blanch Stanley, Guy Hinton, Evelyn Roop, Emory DeLancy, Bernese Lemasters, Ethel Todd, and G. W. Hasking. Their sponsor was James Weaver.

In 1930 the graduates were Helen Zickefoose, Myrtle Kay, Naomi Henderson, Winifred Tate, Ruby Ogden, Martha Albertton, Enid Coughran, Jewel Giles, Jessie Reed, Davis Clegg, Edwin Johnson, Arthur Wilson, and Lela Wilson with James Hunter as sponsor.

Allene Todd, Everett Hooper, Aranelle Peacock, Albert Merill, Christine Hinton, Delbert Roop, Donald Smelzer, Dorothy Maloney, Lilis McDaniel, Mary Clegg, Omah Reed, Mary Kay, Bill Hinton, Marie Vowell, and John Davee made up the graduating class of 1931. J. A. Weaver was sponsor of the class.

The 1932 graduating seniors were Ethlyn Boyington, Earl Bellis, Julia Wilson, Doss Haskins, Pauline Windosor, Jack Hawkins, Pearl Runyon, Glen Lund, Henry Lund, Fannie Ingalls, Hubert Peacock, Jess F. Reed, Linnie Mac Canada, Thomas A. Wien, Irene Roop and Kenneth Witt. James Weaver was senior sponsor.

The graduating seniors of 1933 were Odas Stockton, Ida Loveall, Howard Evans, Lilis Mitchell, Lawrence Coulson, Allie Coleman, Wilda Runyon, Doris Wilson, Jessie Frost, Herbert Holmes, Ercell Beaver, Mildred Sneed, Leona Elder, Tom Thurmond, Ethel Copline, John Shelly and Thelma Harmon.

Graduating seniors of 1934 were Raymond Zickefoose, Clyde Weaver, Vera Cold, Bertha Ingalls, George Wilson, Wilma Schram, Clayton Greenwood, Edith Crosson, Hudson Zickefoose, Lenora Weaver, Virginia Daniel, Evelyn Harden, and Forrest Hooper.

In 1935 the following graduated from Mannford High: Velma Melton, Maryin Reed, Jasper Loveall, Kathleen Boyington, Ladora Crane, Tommy Ashlock, Clyde Pursell, Mary Ogden, Claude Zumwalt. L. F. Robinson was the superintendent and senior sponsor that year.

In 1936 diplomas were given to Joyce Sissom, Claude Aldridge, Dorthy Greenwood, Mary Katherine Baker, Cecil Brooks, Reba Chapman, Wilma Beaver, Talmadge Greenwood, Nadene Hopps, Jewel Barton, Vernon Butler and Deloris Crupper.

In 1937 and 1938 the new wing or what is now the grade school was added. The superintendent at this time was Mr. Joe B. House. The graduates were as follows: 1937; Mary Morgan, Roy Frost, Paul Hinton, Neoma Brady, Josephine Young, Evelyn Caterhaut, Ellen Box, Jack Greenup, Frankie Johnson, Arlie Dunegan, Carleen Trower, Mary Runyon, Joe Aldridge, Ralph Reynolds, Preppa Ingalls, Genevieve Rainbolt, Lorene Zickefoose and Ira Reed. 1938; Alva Witt, Glossie Lee Smith, Dorothy Krotizer, Mary Ella Belt, Verna Mae Gilreath, Forrest Adsit, Wavel Box, Mildred Ihrig, Geneva Crain, Jannie Boyd, Roy Ringer, Kathleen Zickefoose, Chester Canode, Bertha Sue Boyd, and Dean Harness.

In 1939 Haxle Barton, Phil Hinton, Phyllis Hooper, Keith Martin, Lena Mitchell, Margie Stroup, Orvel Means, Thelma Hooper, Edward Lawmaster, Helen Witt, Ray Brooks, Evelyn Zickefoose, Fern Sissom, Beulah Bellis, and Billie Ihrig received diplomas,

1940 saw the following students graduate from Mannford High School: Eugenia Clegg, Owen Housley, Raymond Tate, Dan Vaught, Bertha Larremore, Eugene Crane, Gene Hasking, Margaret Larremore, Neoma Burlison, Warren Means, Marcella Ihrig, Leon Brooks, Ruth Rashendorfer, Elwyn Thurston, Lucille Johnson, Raymond Brady and Warren Green.

In 1941 these students graduated from M. H. S. They are Dixie MacDonald, Oliver Zickefoose, Bonnie Jo Cunningham, Roy Lawmaster, Oneta Ihrig, Edith Vowell, Edith Mae Larremore, Billie Weaver, Gladys Anderson, Floyd Zickefoose, Gloria Rashendorfer, Herchel Palmer, Josephine Davis, Maxine Dye, Jewell Bellis, and Billy Adsit. Mr. M. S. Van Noy was superintendent at that time.

In 1942 with Carolyn Tissingtron as their sponsor these students graduated from this high school: Denny Joe Smelser, Frank Spess, Joe van Noy, Beverly Ann Boyington, Erza Pulliam, Willa Dean Trower, and Beulah Lawmaster.

There were twelve senior graduates in 1943. Mr. J. T. Thompson was superintendent and Caroline T??sington senior sponsor. They were: LeRoy Anderson, Don Woodrell, Barbara Martin, Billy Greenwood, Clayton Krotzer, Essie Shoemaker, Naomie Thurston, Florence Means, Bobby Greenwood, Frank Dale and Willis Dale.

The senior class of 1944 consisted of Marie Lawmaster, Paul Spess, Wilma Rossman, Lois Hooper, Clois Hooper, Beth Hinton, Buna Burlison, Kenneth Applegate, Lucretia Rich, Zola Claypool, Helen Fisher, Florence Crane, and Leonard Zickefoose.

In 1945 high school diplomas were handed to Ruth Spess, Betty Wilson, Billy Joe Lamberson, Bette Anderson, Lois Mac Donald, Ermalee Dale, Nadine Melton, Buck Cramer, Sheralee Hooper, and Dick Woodrell.

In the senior class of 1946 there was Willadean Newport, Vera Lee Hammock, Peggy Flinchum, Maxine Colberg, Lila Shackleford, Willa Lee Fender, Virginia Reeves, Rheba Dickey, Russell Nance, and Beth Brashears.

The seniors of 1947 were Donald Butler, Joe Reeves, Dale Robbins, Dixie Nance, Beulah Kinion, Paul McCrackin, Ida Lou Reed, Stephen Krotzer, Maxine Hinton, Dallas Standridge, Marjorie Compton, Jessie Donald Hooper, Donna Jane Means, Leslie Davidson, Rebecca Spess, Nona Osterhout and Earl Murray Jr.  This class under the supervision of Cecil Smith, superintendent put out the first high school annual in several years.

In 1948 the following students graduated from Mannford High School: Maxine Box, Vera Harvison, Gordon Gilreath, Leroy Fitzwater, Imogene Butler, Carol Spess, Violet McCrackin, Jack McIntire, Louise Reeves, Raymond Manley, Marjorie Shackelford, Jimmy Bowen, Pamelia Chapman, Don Holmes, Clarence Green, Doris Woodrell, Ronald Smith, and Beulah Nance.

This year another group of young people will leave Mannford High to make their own way in the world. They are Bethan (Butler) Greenwood, Alma Jean (Martin) Gilreath, Lenore (Houston) Flinchum, Charlene Brady, Renee Gregg, Rita Jo Gill, Louise Barton, Ray Allen Clegg, Lester Kercheval, Don Brashears, and Kenneth Gilreath.

Mannford Consolidated High school now has an enrollment of three-hundred grade and high-school pupils. There are thirteen teachers. At present and for the past three years Mr. Cecil C. Smith is superintendent. Mr. C. G. Davis is principal. The members of the school board are B. I. Greenwood, C. S. Krotzer, and N. S. Mitchell who has served the past twenty nine years as a member of this board.

(From the 1949 Mannford High School Yearbook, photo added by Edd Alexander)

My Hometown

Although I was born in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and lived in Cromwell, Oklahoma for the first three or four years of my life, I consider Mannford, Oklahoma to be my hometown.  My mother was from Cromwell and just happened to be in Rock Springs when I was born.  My adoptive father was from the Mannford area and that's how we came to live there.

Mannford was a settlement on the banks of the Cimarron River and, prior to about 1904, didn't even have a name.  It was platted in 1904 and became a "for real" town before Oklahoma became a state in 1907.  Mannford was named after a gentleman who lived in the area and helped found the town.  His land included a low-water crossing on the river which became known as Mann's Ford, later shortened to Mannford.

For several years, Mannford was a growing area because of the railroad which ran through there, the farming and the cattle which were fed out in the area.  Eventually, the town reached a state of equilibrium and the population leveled out at about 500 people.  In 1951 when I was five years old, my father, with his new wife and two adopted sons, returned to Mannford.  Growing up in a small town was the best thing that could have happened to me.  Most of my memories of childhood are pleasant ones.

In the mid to late 1950's, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that a flood control reservoir would be built somewhere around the confluence of the Arkansas and Cimarron Rivers.  The lake was to be an integral part of the Arkansas River Navigation System which was then being constructed.  The system was conceived to allow navigation from Tulsa to the Mississippi River.

I remember that Life Magazine called the system the "biggest pork barrel project in the history of the United States".  Senators Mike McClellan of Arkansas and Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma each had a tremendous influence in Washington, D.C. and were able to get the spending, about $4.3 billion at the time, approved.

At any rate, the construction of the flood control reservoir, to be called Keystone Lake after the nearest town to the dam location, began.  Several towns were to be affected, Cleveland, Osage, Prue, Keystone, and Mannford.  Cleveland and Osage were right on the edge of the flood control pool so elected to protect their towns with levies.  The town of Prue was more impacted and moved a short distance to escape the lake.  Keystone was not so fortunate; it would be about 50 feet under water so a serious move would be required.  Unfortunately, no leaders stepped up to lead this effort, and as a result, Keystone died except for memories.

My hometown, Mannford, was going to be mostly under water at flood stages and the Corps of Engineers gave them the option to either build levies to protect the town or to move it completely.  Several of Mannford's leaders took this as an opportunity to take the town into a new position and elected to move the town.  The location chosen was two miles east and two miles south of the old town, about 2.8 miles.  This would insure that they were on the relocated State Highway 51 as well as having the railroad run through it.  Incidentally, our family didn't have to move; we had been two miles east of Mannford and now we would live two miles north of the newly-located town.

In 1957, my family moved to Pampa, Texas, and we were there until 1960 when we returned to Mannford.  Some construction on the reservoir and ancillary projects began while we were in Pampa but the majority of the work began about the time we returned to Mannford.  Many things had to happen before the lake could be impounded including construction of new highways, railroad tracks, parks and moving many houses, businesses and even cemeteries.

By August, 1962, the new school had been completed and I started my junior year there.  Jobs for young people abounded and I did my share of construction work on park roads in the area.  We got to see a huge project being built right in our backyards and it was an exciting time!

Mannford has survived several natural disasters since it's move, including a tornado in April, 1984, which destroyed the High School, several churches, and many homes.  A wildfire in 2012 burned 60,000 acres and about 400 homes in the area but didn't get into the town proper.

Today the "new" town of Mannford has matured into a thriving community with a lot of amenities and I believe that it's proximity to Tulsa will make it a high growth area for the next 50 years.  The population has grown from about 2000 people in the 2000 Census to about 3000 in the 2010 Census.

Painting the House

Louise has been after me for a couple of years to paint the house - not just the outside but all the interior and the trim.

We've lived here for 20 years and I've had the exterior painted a couple of times.  We had never had anything painted on the inside except for the kitchen cabinets, which were painted about five years ago.  I would rather do anything than paint and I'm old enough that I don't do anything on ladders anymore so any painting has to be done by someone else.

Interior paint is apparently like women's clothing.  What was in fashion when we built the house is not in fashion now.  The walls were all beige but Louise wanted them to be gray.  After a couple of years of putting her off, I realized that I was going to have to do something.

Finally, I started looking for a painter and one guy was highly recommended to me.  I started trying to contact him in May and he would never return my calls.  After three or four months, I remembered that I had used a member of my shooting club to paint the exterior several years ago so I decided to call him.  Harold said he would be glad to paint the house so he came out and took a look.

We developed a plan to paint the exterior and have it done by September 23, when we were hosting a Nash cousins family reunion.  The interior work would be started after the reunion.  Harold is in his mid-70's and he warned me that he was slow.  Although his son and grandson helped him some, he as basically a one-man show.  He is a third generation house painter; his father and his grandfather both painted houses.

Harold, with his son and grandson, got the exterior painted just before the reunion and it looked nice.  We didn't change the exterior color but painted it just for maintenance.  After the reunion, he, with his grandson, B.D., came back and started on the interior.

If you ever do decide to have the interior of your house painted, take a vacation and don't come back until it's finished!

Black Bean Salad

One of Louise's and my favorite places to eat in the Rio Grande Valley is The Blue Onion in Weslaco, Texas.  They serve a black bean salad which I dearly love.

I didn't ask them but decided to try to replicate their recipe.  Most black bean salad recipes also call for corn but I didn't want to, for some reason.  Here is my recipe which serves 4-6:

2                 16oz. cans black beans, well drained
1/2 cup        onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup        pimentos, finely chopped
2                  medium jalapenos, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tbl.            olive oil

4 tbl. white vinegar

2 tbl. lime juice

2 tbl. sugar

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. salt

Mix all the ingredients together and, if you can, let them set in the fridge overnight
to meld the flavors. It does taste pretty good without that rest, however.


Addendum: When you drain the beans, go ahead and rinse them too to get the
"gunk" off them. Also, instead of pimentos, use 1/2 cup of finely chopped red bell
peppers.

Edd Alexander March 27, 2018

Harry Nash Revealed

Well, it's been a long time since I've put anything on this blog - almost a year in fact.  Why?  Because I have had writer's block.  That's code for being lazy.

Yesterday, after seventeen years of frustration, I finally found out where my great grandfather Harry Nash came from.  I first wrote about Harry in April, 2013, listing him as one of my failures in genealogy.  He has certainly been an enigma - I've been able to trace back every one of my ancestors for several generations except for him.

My grandfather was Edward Everett Nash.  He was born just before the turn of the twentieth century (1894) and saw a lot of hard times.  His parents abandoned him when he was a small child and he lived in orphanages until he was 12 or 13.  At that time he struck out on his own.

Ed's mother was Susan Pearl Miller, my great grandmother.  She had 18 children by two different husbands and, as far as we can tell, didn't raise any of them!  For several years, I've been able to research her family and have met a bunch of cousins.  I have a pretty clear picture of her life although I never met her.

Susie Pearl's mother was Martha Jane Duncan and her father was Daniel D. Miller.  The other day I was browsing the LDS website, FamilySearch, and found that we can trace the Duncans back to about 950 A.D.  In fact, my 30th great grandfather was Duncan I, King of Scotland.  He was murdered by Macbeth in order that Macbeth might assume the crown.  Macbeth, of course, was the subject of the play by William Shakespeare.

But I digress.  The subject of this blog is my Grandfather Ed's father, Harry Nash.  Because Granddad was abandoned, he never knew much about his parents.  In fact, family lore tells us that Ed only met his father once when he was about 13 or 14 and working on a ranch in Arizona.  A man rode up to him and asked Ed if he knew who he was.  When he replied that he didn't, the man told him that he was Ed's father.

As I stated earlier, I've been searching for some information on Harry Nash for seventeen years.  Every lead I've ever followed was either wrong or inconclusive.  It's ironic that only yesterday morning, I told my wife, Louise, that I certainly hoped to solve that riddle before I died.  Then, by yesterday evening, much of it was solved!

I was going through some DNA matches for my aunt Edith when I found a new match named Jeffrey Pepper.  He was a good match to her but not to any of Aunt Edith's other family lines.  I thought that he must surely be descended from the Nash's.  I sent him an email and, within an hour, he responded telling me that his great grandfather was indeed a Nash.

With the information he gave me I went to work on Ancestry.com and quickly found his great grandfather, Frederick W. Nash.  A little more digging and I found that he had a brother, Harry W. Nash.  This Harry was born about the same time as my great grandfather had reportedly been born but in Massachusetts, not Michigan as the family had believed for years.

I was beginning to feel certain that this was the right trail and when I learned Harry and Fred's father's name, I was sure.  It was Edward Everett Nash, exactly the same name as my grandfather!  In a matter of a couple of hours, I had gone from knowing nothing about Harry Nash to having a pretty good understanding of them.

It's almost kind of a letdown to know that the mystery is solved.  I've chased it for so long and now it's over, sort of.  There is still a lot we don't know about Harry, specifically what happened to him after he and my great grandmother separated.

Jeff Pepper has promised to send me more information about the family and I'm anxious to get started on researching more of Harry's background.