The Pierce Family

As I have mentioned earlier, my biological father was Roy Moses Pierce, Jr. He left my mother when I was less than a year old and I never saw him again until 1999, some 53 years later. Roy was called “Junior” by his family. Junior was also the father of my brother, Gary but never saw him. Mom and Dad (Tommy) never kept this a secret from us but we didn't talk about it a lot either.

When Junior was a very young man, he had a severe accident which impaired him for the rest of his life. He was working on the railroad back east somewhere (I believe I was told in Massachusetts) and was critically injured. He was not expected to live but somehow did and his family brought him back to the Cromwell area, where he had been raised. Mom and he got married in late 1945, a couple of years after his accident. For the rest of his life, his family used the accident as the reason for his challenges.

Junior had several brothers and a sister, most of whom lived in the Bakersfield area where their parents had moved in the 1940's. As a child and young man, I never had any contact with any of them except for once when I was about 18. I was working at Ted Norwood's service station in Mannford when, one day, Ted came back to where I was working and told me that Pete and Bessie Barton were out on the drive and wanted to talk to me. Pete and Bessie were long time Mannford residents but I hardly knew them and found it strange that they would want to talk with me. When I went out to their car, Pete and Bessie were in the front seat and an unknown couple were in the back. We had an awkward two minute “how do you do?” conversation and I went back to work. That evening I was relating the meeting to my mother and she told me that the woman in the back seat was my aunt, Ninah Melton, Junior's sister. She had known that the Bartons knew Ninah and her husband somehow.

Many years later (35, in fact), I was talking to Mom one day and she told me that Ninah had contacted her and asked if Gary and I would have any interest in seeing any of the Pierce family. Since I had just retired and was somewhat curious anyway, I called Ninah and talked to her. Eventually, Louise and I decided to make a trip to California to see the Pierce's. I talked about this with Gary and he had absolutely no desire to meet any of them. In fact, I think he was somewhat upset with me that I would consider seeing them. I was concerned about hurting Dad's feelings; he was my true father even though he had adopted Gary and me.

Eventually, Louise and I did go to Bakersfield and meet the Pierces. Ninah, being the only girl in the family, was kind of the “hub” of the group. Junior had had a stroke and lived with another brother, Lloyd, in Bakersfield. Lloyd was a widower and enjoyed Junior's company, I think. The whole time we spent there was kind of surreal; they didn't quite know how to treat me and I was probably a bit of an ass to them, wanting to remain aloof.

While I was there, I did learn about one of my uncles, Larry Stanley Pierce. He had served in the Army in Viet Nam and had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. He had thrown himself on a grenade to save his platoon. He was one of the first Viet Nam era recipients of the Medal and his family was flown to Washington, DC, to have the Medal presented by President Johnson. Larry was married and left two small children behind. I have never met his wife or children. Today, both a street and a post office in Taft, California are named after him.

I was surprised to learn that Junior had never remarried and had no other children. I had really expected to find that I had some brothers and sisters. Because of the stroke he had suffered, he had a speech impairment and was extremely self conscious about it. After a couple of days, Louise and I returned back home. About a year later, Rachel, my daughter, indicated that she would like to meet the Pierce family as well so she and I flew out to Bakersfield. Again, it was a somewhat awkward meeting. Dan, my son, never had any interest in meeting them, not because he harbored any ill will; he just was not interested. I wonder today what Junior thought about us showing up. I don't know whether he was truly glad to see us or whether the whole deal was Ninah's idea and he wished we had just not shown up.

Ninah died in 2002 and Junior in 2003. We had not stayed in contact and I didn't know until sometime later that they had both passed.

In about 2000, I became interested in genealogy and did a lot of work on the Alexander and Mooneyham families. My mother's mother was a Mooneyham. I didn't spend a lot of time on the Pierce's (since I didn't know much about them) or on the Nash's, my mother's father's family.

In about 2010, however, I began to do some study on the Pierce family and quickly found a cousin, Sharon Pierce, who was also into genealogy. Sharon lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with her son Christian, and her father, Coy. I had talked to Coy on the phone back in 1999 but had not gotten any feel for what kind of person he was.

In October, 2013, Louise and I were going to meet Dan and Dorinda in Atlanta where they lived and spend a long weekend in the mountains of North Carolina. I decided that, since we were already in the state, we should go on over to Fayetteville and meet Sharon and Coy. I called her and made the arrangements. When we met them, we were immediately comfortable and at ease with them. I supposed I had gotten over my desire to distance myself from the Pierce's.

Coy had been a career Army guy and the reason they lived in Fayetteville was its proximity to Fort Benning where he had been stationed for a long time. He moved in with Sharon in about 2012 to help her with her house and provide some company. Sharon is a sales person in the food service industry and has done that kind of work for many years. Louise and I enjoyed ourselves and were glad that we had made the decision to go visit Coy and Sharon.

If I had a “do over”, what would I change? Probably nothing except that I would have been more responsive on those two trips to California. Roy Pierce, Jr. could never replace Tommy Alexander as my father but I still would like to have known a little bit more about him.

The Great Mannford Gunfight

In October, 2012, I mentioned a gunfight that I had witnessed as a teen.  In 2003, the Keystone Crossroads Historical Society published a book of Mannford history called "Mannford Through The Years" and they asked me to write a short story about it.  Here is a copy of that story.

"One day in 1963, I believe it was on a Saturday afternoon, Mom asked Gary and me to take her car to Ted Norwood's service station for an oil change.

"Since we both worked for him, part time anyway, this was a good reason to go to town. We took the car in and put it on the rack. There were a few people hanging around as they often did, including Roy Russell, the Superintendent of Schools and a good friend of Ted's, the Pepsi route man whose first name was Bill and Willard Oller. Oller was a big man and very overbearing but we weren't particularly scared of him.

"In a little while, a tall, lanky man whom I did not know walked through the door of the station. Almost at once, he and Willard began fighting. I was amazed at this sight - two grown men fighting like school children. Ted told my brother, Gary, to go get Lee White, the local constable, and Gary left in Ted's pickup truck.

"As Willard and the other man fought (I found out later that he was Ted Hix, Willard's brother-in-law) the fight moved from the office out into the shop bay. Although Ted weighed about half of what Willard weighed, he soon began to get the better of Willard. Willard finally got a chance to escape and took off through the door of the station to his Cadillac, which was parked in the drive. I remember standing there in disbelief watching Willard lean over into his car and come out with a .32 automatic pistol. I thought to myself, "He will never use that thing!" The next thing I knew, Willard came back through the door of the station and, without saying a word, started shooting at Ted. I was standing behind Ted, and Bill, the Pepsi route man, pushed me down underneath Mom's car. Ted was hit four times, twice in the chest and twice in the leg. In spite of being shot, he chased Willard out the door of the station, took the gun away from him and tried to shoot him. Fortunately for Willard, the gun had jammed. Willard ran up the hill west from the station.

"About that time, Gary returned with Lee White, who very calmly walked up the hill and told Willard he was going to have to arrest him. Lee took Willard to Sapulpa and the ambulance took Ted to the hospital. I remember that while Ted waited for the ambulance, he sat down on the curb of the station, unlaced the work boot on the leg, which had been shot, and the boot filled up with blood.

"About two hours later, after Gary and I had gone home to relate the story to Mom and Dad, a pickup truck pulled into our driveway. Dad looked out and recognized the two men in it as being employees of Willard Oller. He said, "Well, it looks like we've got trouble!" then he got the 12-gauge shotgun off its rack, loaded it and the three of us, Dad, Gary and I went out into the yard. One of the men got out of their truck and said, "We understand that your boys saw what happened at the station today. We just want to talk to them about it." Dad told them that there was no way we were going to talk to them and with a shotgun pointed at them, they decided not to argue the point. They got into their pickup and drove off.

"Later that evening, I was back at Ted's station and Willard Oller came back in!  He had made bail and bragged that he beat Lee White back to Mannford from Sapulpa. In his usual blustery manner, he was chiding me for ducking under a car when the gunfight was going on. I don't know what he thought I should have been doing!

"During the next six months, I was called out of class four times by County deputies to be served subpoenas, twice for the criminal trial and twice for a civil suit filed by Ted Hix against Willard.

"Willard pled temporary insanity during his trial and was acquitted. He bragged to us later that he had "bought off' the jury". Since it was in Creek County, we all believed him.

"Ted did win a $38,000 judgment although it is not known if any of it was ever paid."

Autobiography, Chapter 6

When I decided to return to Oklahoma State in early 1968, I looked around for the field which would be considered the easiest major in the University.  It appeared to be a tie between Business Administration and Political Science.  “Poly Sci” sounded more interesting to me so that became my newest (and last) major.

I had negotiated a settlement with Maurice Roger McSpadden’s insurance company (from the 1968 car accident - see my blog of March 21, 2013) which gave me about $10,000, a huge sum in those days.  Even though I had had surgery twice on the broken right arm, once to put pins in and once to take them out, I thought the settlement was fantastic.

I had enough money, in fact, that in the Spring of 1968, I decided not to come home to Mannford and work but to stay in Stillwater and go to school.  I took two classes over the summer including botany and remember that the ratio of female to male students in that class was about 10:1.  Yes, life was good!

When I first returned to Stillwater, I bounced around, living in two or three different places.  One was a boarding house on the second floor over the “General George” on Washington Street.  The General George was a head shop and the other people who lived there were all Indian students.  The smell of stewed, curried chicken legs became almost more than I could stand.

Since I didn’t have the crew from Mannford to run around with (which probably helped my grade point average!), I started running around with a group of “town” people, not students.  These included Junior Mullendore, who ran a service station, Jim Wellington, a Coors route man, Fred Wellington, his father and a jailer for the County, J.O. Dodgin, a motorcycle mechanic, David Turner, Ted Sebring, Tom Crozier, and J.R. Graves, who ran a detailing shop.

Most of these guys were into CB radio and motorcycles and I was into both of these as well.  In fact, it was about this time that I bought my first Harley, a 1963 Sportster.  The guy that I bought it from had done a lot of work to the engine and it was the fastest vehicle in Stillwater, bar none.  It actually got to the point that every Saturday, someone wanted to race me to see if they could knock me off my throne.

In the fall of 1968, I moved into the house that I would live in for the next two years.  It was a tiny house converted from a garage and was located at the corner of Ninth Street and Washington.  Ray Bigler was the landlord; I had met him while working for Joe Lewis at his Conoco Station out north on Highway 177.  By now, I had the motorcycle, a power boat, a slick 1963 Chevy and was living in a house by myself.  Now this was the way to attend school!

Even though I had quite a bit of money from the settlement, I did continue to work.  In 1969, I went down to the feed mill, Stillwater Milling Company, and applied for a job.  Since I had a chauffeur’s license, they put me to work immediately driving a truck.  I told the guy when I interviewed that I was good at driving bobtails but had no experience in semi’s.  He said that they had plenty of semi drivers so that wouldn’t be a problem.

The second week that I worked for them, I got a call one morning asking if I could take a load of feed to their store in Perry.  It was snowing that morning but I told them I could and went down to the mill.  As you may have guessed, the load that morning was on a semi.  Well, I “white knuckled” it all the way to Perry and from then on, I was in semi’s all the time.

By this time, I had figured out how to study and work and have a good time all at the same time.  In fact, there were a couple of semesters that I would work 60 hours a week, carry 15 hours in school, have a good time and still made the Dean’s Honor Roll.

On weekends and when I wasn’t working, I would hang out at Jim Smith’s Café at the corner of 6^th and Main and drink coffee with the guys.  The waitresses in there were attractive and we liked to harass them.  I was attracted to one in particular, a redhead by the name of Louise, but I didn’t get around to asking her out.  Besides, I was going with a girl, Carolyn Ventris, and didn’t need to confuse myself.

Carolyn had a little boy, Bobby, who was cute as a bug and Carolyn was looking for a Dad for him.  I wasn’t ready for it to be me, although I did have a close call one night.  Carolyn, Jim Wellington, Junior Mullendore and I all went out drinking and we had way too much to drink.  The next morning I woke up with a terrible hangover and finally made my way to the café.  Jim and Junior were in there and they both allowed as how it was too bad that we had not been able to find a minister the night before.  They both wanted to know if I was still going to marry Carolyn, like I had said last night.  Wow, I didn’t remember any of that!

In the summer of 1969, I had been going to school for four semesters straight so I decided to take the summer off and go back to Mannford and work.  I came home, lived with Mom and Dad and worked for Ted Norwood in his service station.  It was a pretty uneventful summer except the visitor I had at the station one day.

I was in the back working on a car when Ted came back and told me that Orville Barton was on the driveway and wanted to talk to me.  I went out to Orville’s car where he and his wife Bessie were in the front seat and another couple that I didn’t know was in the back.  Now, I knew Orville but he and I weren’t old buddies.  He made small talk for a couple of minute and then he and the others left.

I thought this was a really strange encounter until I explained it to Mom.  She knew that Orville and Bessie were friends with my Aunt Ninah, Roy Pierce’s sister.  The couple in the back of Orville’s car had been my aunt and her husband whom I had never met.  It would be another 30 years before I would meet her.

I did go over to Stillwater a few times during the summer.  One of those times I was on the Sportster and happened to see the red headed waitress from Jim’s.  She waved at me but I decided to be a big shot and ignored her.  Boy, would I pay for that later.

The other big event of the summer in Mannford was getting beat in a drag race.  The old motorcycle was still pretty fast but one day I raced Gary Walker in his 1967 Nova.  It had a 365 hp 327 ci motor and he waxed me.  I still hadn’t been beaten by a motorcycle but that day was coming too.

When I returned to Stillwater in the fall, it was just like I had left it.  I still had the little house on 9^th Street and I was still going with Carolyn, although I was beginning to feel uncomfortable about it.

One night in September, Carolyn and I were sitting in Jim Smith’s Café when the phone rang.  One of the waitresses came and got me and told me it was for me.  When I got to the phone, the caller was Bonnie McKnight, a girl I knew.  She said that Louise Nance (the red headed waitress) and she were both out at the Lamplighter Bar and they wanted to know if I would join them.  As I hung up the phone, I was trying to come up with a lie to tell Carolyn.  When I got back to the booth, I told her that my Mother had become very ill and that I was going to have to go to Mannford that evening.  That was the last time I ever saw Carolyn.

When I got out to the Lamplighter that night on the Sportster, I, for some reason gravitated toward Louise instead of Bonnie, and danced with her all night.  When the bar closed, it was raining but Louise wanted me to give her a ride home on the motorcycle in spite of the rain.  I can remember today as well as if it were yesterday standing outside her parents’ house, kissing her in the rain.

Well, it wasn’t love at first sight but it was just about that quick.  We went together until I proposed to her in November.  I had never brought a woman home to introduce to my parents until I started going with Louise so I’m sure they knew right away that this was going to turn into something.  We initially set the wedding day to be in May or June, after school was out.  Then we moved it to March, during Spring Break.  Then we moved it to January, between semesters.

Because I had gotten to the point where I really wanted to spend all my extra time with Louise, I had gotten to where I was turning down more loads at the Feed Mill than I was taking.  Finally, one day, the foreman called me to come down there.  He told me that I was going to have to make a choice, either the job or the girl was going to have to go.  Well, that was the end of my truck driving career.

We did get married in January, on Louise’s birthday, the 20^th.  We were married by Reverend Don Combs at the Methodist Church in Yale.  Her Mom and Dad, my Mom and Dad, her sister and brother-in-law, Esther and Vernon, and my brother, Milt, were the attendees.  I gave the Minister $20, I bought a corsage for about $5, and a roll of film for the camera.  This was the total of our wedding expenses.

We got married on Tuesday and were going to have to be back in Stillwater on the following Monday to begin school.  We planned to go to Arkansas but the day of the wedding there was a blizzard east of Tulsa.  We decided to go west instead and spent our honeymoon night at the Buffalo Motel in Canyon, Texas.  At the time we thought this was fantastic.  In 2002, we had occasion to be in Canyon again and the Buffalo Inn is still there, with a minor name change.  Our tastes have changed a little in 32 years, however, and we decided not to spend the night there.

During my last semester at Oklahoma State, I didn’t’ work much.  Louise was still working for Jim Smith at the Café and I worked some for Joe Lewis at the Conoco Station but not nearly as much as I had in previous years.  I had one class that last semester that was really eating my lunch!

I had taken a couple of courses under this guy (I don’t remember his name) and had done well in them, so I thought I would be wired in this course, Latin American Governments.  I got in there, found out that this was his specialty, and that I was the only student in there who was NOT a “Latin American Studies Student”.

Toward the end of the semester, I knew I was in trouble so I went to his office to beg for a grade.  I told him that I had to have that course to graduate.  On the day that grades were to be posted, I went running up to his office.  Next to the code number that was assigned to me was the grade “D” with two minus signs after it.  My begging had been successful!

In spite of that course, I managed to graduate with 128 hours and a 2.3 grade point average.  If you do the math and start with 60 hours of 1.4, it takes a pretty good effort to finish up where I did.  If that sounds like bragging, maybe it is but after my poor start, I needed to brag about something.

1970 was a horrible year to graduate in.  I had three or four interviews while still in school but no job offers from them.  After school was out, we decided to move to Tulsa where I could spend full time looking for a job.  The School Superintendent at Mannford then was Fay Stout; his son Allen worked for the State Unemployment Agency.  I went to see Allen and he got me interviews with several companies.  I had two offers, one from Allstate to go to work as a claims adjuster, and the other from Vickers, as an inside sales rep.  The Allstate job paid more, $650 per month, but I would not be able to start it for six weeks.  The Vickers job, which paid $590, started immediately.  We didn’t have any choice; we couldn’t wait six weeks.