Heart Surgery

In late 2018, I had a regular checkup with my cardiologist, Dr. Kacere.  After a few minutes of checking me and talking, he got up to leave.  On his way out the door, he paused and turned around.  "Would you be interested in a procedure to allow you to quit taking warfarin?", he asked.

I replied that I would indeed.  He explained to me that a small device called a Watchman© would be inserted into my heart and close off the left atrial appendage.  Yeah, I know, it is gobbledygook to me too.

After a bit more discussion, I told him that we were leaving for South Texas for the winter and would return in April.  He told me to give his scheduler a call when I got back and we would see about doing it, which I did.

The procedure consisted of having a small device, roughly the shape of a parachute, into my heart to close off that appendage.  On May 16, I checked into St. John's Hospital to have it done.  As far as I know, it went off without a hitch!

I've got a couple of followup visits scheduled.  If anything bad happens, I'll let you know (if I'm able).

The Wilson "66" Ranch

It's amazing how fast time gets away from you.  I haven't posted anything here in months!  I've been busy lately doing research on the Wilson "66" ranch which was located in Archer City, Texas, and my hometown, Mannford, Oklahoma.  Here is a copy of what I've learned.

History of The Wilson “66” Ranch

The Wilson, or 66, Ranch had it’s beginnings in Archer County, Texas in about 1882 when the 099 Ranch, owned by J.H. Stone, was divided into three parcels and sold to three different people.

Before white settlers came to Archer County, the only people there were Indians from several tribes, including Apaches, Comanches, and Kiowas. The first permanent white settler was Dr. R.O. Prideaux who moved to Archer County in 1874. Dr. Prideaux was originally from England and had made scouting trips to the Archer County area before his permanent move there.

The late 1870’s saw a host of ranches spring up in the area because the grass was good and land prices were cheap. One rancher of that time bought eight sections (over 5000 acres) for a total of $14.00! By the time of the 1880 Census, 596 people lived in the county, along with 56,000 head of cattle and 1400 sheep.

The 099 Ranch consisted of 130,000 acres in the northern part of Archer County.. When it was divided, Luke Wilson purchased the western part, consisting of 61,000 acres and it became the 66 Ranch. The center section became the TL Ranch and the eastern part was purchased by the Files Cattle and Land Company.

Luke Ferrell Wilson was born in 1842 in Palestine, Illinois. His father, Isaac Newton Wilson, was a well-to-do farmer who had moved to Illinois from Virginia. In fact, the 1860 Census listed Isaac’s personal estate at $10,000 and his real estate holdings at $35,000, a huge sum in those days.

Luke was the fifth child of ten born to Isaac and his wife, Hannah Decker Wilson. All eight of the children who lived to maturity received educations and became prominent in their communities. One of his sibings, Edward S. Wilson, became a lawyer and his children would figure strongly in the 66 Ranch.

Luke’s college education has not been documented but in 1869 he married Sarah Ellen “Nell” McCrory while still living in Illinois. By 1880, he had moved to Kansas City and was working as an investment banker. In fact, he was listed as the Secretary of the National Bank of Commerce in Kansas City in some documents. During the period from the 1880’s to the 1920’s, he variously listed his occupation as cattle and land dealer, office, stockman, and investments.

No documentation has been found concerning Luke Wilson’s purchase of the 66 Ranch. However, the name of the ranch came about because of the previous name, the 099. It is said that he just turned the brand over to become the 66.

After Wilson’s purchase of the ranch, Allen H. Harmer became the foreman. Cowboys working for Parmer included Milton Walker Alexander (later nicknamed “Cap” Alexander), Jim and Pie Baker, Ed, Eph, and George Brown, John McCluskey, Lee McMurtry, and several others.

The mid-1880’s were especially harsh with a blizzard-drought-blizzard series in 1885 through 1887. In fact, some ranches in the area didn’t survive this harsh series of events. The 66 Ranch did, however, and in the late 1880’s and the decade of the 1890’s it thrived.

Allen Parmer, the foreman of the Ranch, had an interesting and checkered background. He had been a member of the infamous Quantrill’s Raiders guerrilla group during the Civil War and had been wounded five times in battles. He finally surrendered to Federal authorities in July, 1865, in Kentucky.

After attending a business college for two years, Parmer married Susan James, sister of Frank and Jesse James. His association with the James brothers haunted him for years and he was arrested on several charges, including train robbery, but never convicted. However, the story is told that he was once backed down by a Mrs. F. Matthews who was wielding a shotgun. He had come to her house to run her off but she had other thoughts.

In the late 1890’s, Luke Wilson decided to take a herd of cattle into Indian Territory where they would be fattened up and shipped by rail to Kansas City. He sent Cap Alexander, along with 5000 steers, north from Archer City. In the 1900 Census, Alexander was in Indian Territory just southwest of Haskell where he listed his occupation as “cowboy”.

Milton Walker Alexander was born in Dallas County, Missouri, in 1857. He was one of five children, three boys and two girls born to James Orville Alexander and Malinda Bradford Alexander. Both of his parents were from Tennessee but had migrated to Missouri in the 1850’s. Milton’s nickname, “Cap” or “Captain” came about after his arrival in Mannford, Oklahoma. He was so called because he was the foreman or “captain” of the ranch at Mannford.

Soon after 1900, Cap Alexander arrived in Mannford with the 66 Ranch cattle. Land arrangements are unknown but it is surmised that Luke Wilson leased land from the local Indians to run his cattle on. Prior to statehood in 1907, Indian land was not available for purchase.

The ranch at Mannford is said to have stretched from Mannford on the north to Bristow on the south, a large tract indeed. The headquarters of the Ranch was located very near where Mannford City Lake’s dam is now.

In about 1906, Cap Alexander married Mary May Stephens, 24 years younger than him. She was born in 1881, the daughter of James Stephens and Mary Melinda Hall Stephens. Stephens was a local blacksmith and their family had migrated from Missouri. She was working in a laundry in Mannford and caught Cap’s eye after taking in his laundry.

Cap and May had two children, Beulah in 1907, and Tommy in 1911. The ranch headquarters house had burned down in late 1910, so they were living in Kellyville on another part of the ranch when Tommy was born. Shortly after his birth, the ranch house was rebuilt and the family returned to the Mannford area. The rebuilt house was moved into Mannford after the town was moved. It still stands there today.

In 1915, Cap Alexander bought his own small place near the site of today’s “Coyote Corner” at the intersection of State Highway 51 and Coyote Trail. Although he continued to work with the Wilson’s when needed, he was no longer the foreman. The identity of his successor is unknown.

Towns within the main ranch in Archer County included Luke Wilson (or Wilson Switch), named for the ranch’s owner. Wilson Switch consisted of cattle pens, a school, a land office, and a house which Luke Wilson had built for his nephew, Glenn, to live in. Glenn was the nephew of Edward Wilson, an attorney, and Luke’s brother. Because Luke and Nell never had children, he had chosen Glenn to be his “hands on” representative at the ranch in Archer County. Although Glenn was born in Illinois, he had moved to the ranch when he was a young man, sometime before 1910. Glenn did travel frequently to Mannford to advise and assist Cap Alexander on the operations of the ranch.

Another town which sprang up within the confines of the Wilson Ranch was the town of Geraldine. In 1901, a newspaper publisher from Indianapolis, Mr. Philander H. Fitzgerald, decided to invest in real estate “out west”. He was going to start a new colony and sell tract of land to add to his fortune. After much looking, he found the Wilson Ranch and worked out an agreement with Luke Wilson to purchase it. By 1904, however, the “ponzi” scheme had collapsed. Mr. Wilson had sold his land to Fitzgerald for $3 an acre (in cash) and bought it back for $1 per acre. Geraldine became a ghost town.

In the years of 1914-15, oil exploration came to the Wilson Ranch. Although there were no huge fields found, there was a considerable number of discoveries and Luke Wilson increased his wealth from this. Little is known about the demise of the ranch but Mr. Wilson died in early 1928 and it can be surmised that the ranch was sold off shortly after his death.

People of the Wilson Ranch

This is a short biography of some of the people who were involved with the Wilson Ranch, both in Archer County and in Mannford. Some of them have been mentioned previously. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Alexander, Milton Walker “Cap” – For several years after he left the employ of the Wilson Ranch, he did quite well with his ranch near State Highway 51 and Coyote Trail. His marriage to Mary May was tumultuous, however, and she left him sometime around 1925. She married a man by the name of Charley Griffey, from Lenepah, and they moved to the Grove area. Many years later, through DNA testing, it was discovered that Cap was not the father of their son, Tommy. Tom Porter, a cowboy on the Wilson Ranch at Mannford was his true father. Whether Cap was the father of their daughter, Beulah, is unknown. Cap lost his entire savings in the crash of 1929, and lived with his daughter, Beulah, and her husband until his death in 1935.

Alexander, Tommy Herman Milton Walker – Ironically, he was named after two of the cowboys on the Wilson Ranch at Mannford, Tom Porter (his true father) and Herman Weer. Tommy lived in the Mannford area on and off all his life and worked as a drilling rig mechanic. He died in 2004 at the age of 93.

Craven, Earl Been – Earl was a cowboy on the Wilson Ranch at Mannford but little is known about his tenure there. He was born in Missouri but lived in the Mannford area all his life. He died in 1983. Two of his grandsons, Larry and Gary, still live there today.

Henkell, David Casper “Buster” - Buster was a cowboy on the ranch at Mannford and his wife, Sarah Leanna Ihrig, was a cook. He was born in Kansas in 1889 and his family moved to the Mannford area before 1907. After Cap Alexander left the Wilson Ranch, Buster stayed with him and worked on the ranch at Keystone. He died in 1957 in Oklahoma City at the age of 68. He is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

Ihrig, Ernest “Twenty” - He was born in 1892 in Tahlequah and moved to the Mannford area with his parents between 1900 and 1910. He was nicknamed “twenty” because of his short stature and because he was always seen with Cap Alexander, who always wore a .44 caliber revolver. Ernest was a brother to Sarah Leanna Ihrig, Buster Henkell’s wife, and a first cousin to Tommy Alexander. After his stint as a cowboy, he went to work in the booming oilfields as a roughneck. In about 1931, an accident on a drilling rig cost him three fingers on his right hand. In spite of this injury, he could roll a Bull Durham cigarette with two fingers better than most men with five. Ernest died in 1951 and he and his wife, Ivy, are both buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

Ihrig, Sarah Leanna – Previously mentioned, “Lee” was the wife of Buster Henkell, a sister of Ernest Ihrig, and a niece of Mary May Stephens Alexander. She was born in 1902 in Mannford, the daughter of Francis Marion “Frank” Ihrig and Mahala Stephens Ihrig. Mahala, who was called “Hailie”, was a sister of Mary May Stephens Alexander, Cap Alexander’s wife. Apparently Lee and Buster co-habitated for some time before they were married because they presented themselves as sister and brother. She served as a cook for the Wilson Ranch for several years and, when Cap Alexander left to start his own spread, she went with her husband to work for him.

James, Susan Lavenia – Susan was born in Missouri in 1849 and died in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1889. She was the youngest of four children born to this family and the only girl. Two of her siblings were Alexander Franklin “Frank” James and Jesse Woodson James, the famous outlaws. She married Allen Parmer in Missouri in 1870 and shortly after that moved to the Archer City, Texas, area.

McCluskey, John B. – John, or “Uncle” John, as many people called him, was Glen Wilson’s number two man on the Wilson Ranch. Like many of the other people of the ranch, he was born in Missouri, in 1854. He would often travel with Glen Wilson to Mannford to discuss the operation of the ranch with Cap Alexander. McCluskey died in 1934 in Archer City.

McCrory, Luke Wilson – Luke was a nephew of Sarah Ellen “Nell” Wilson and was born in 1881 in Cooke County, Texas. After leaving home just after the turn of the century, he moved to Arkansas and became a banker. Sometime before 1930, he moved back to Wichita Falls and became a trustee of the Luke Wilson Estate. He figured prominently in the affairs of the estate.

McCrory, Sarah Ellen “Nell” - Nell was born in 1845 in Charleston, Illinois, very near where Luke Ferrell Wilson, her future husband lived. She was the third of seven children born to James and Mary McCrory. Like most people of that time, McCrory was a farmer. Nell married Luke in 1869 and soon after they moved to Kansas City. The couple never had children and she died in 1927 in the Kansas City area.

McMurtry, Lee – After the breakup of the 099 Ranch in 1882, McMurtry became the foreman of the Files Cattle and Land Company, one of the three offsprings of the 099. Later he went to work for Allen Parmer on the Wilson 66 Ranch. There were many McMurtry’s around the Archer City area and details about Lee are sketchy. One of Archer City’s most prominent natives was Larry McMurtry, a well-known writer and movie producer.

Parmer, Allen Hazard – Allen Parmer was born in 1848 in Missouri and, after his stint as a member of Quantrill’s Raiders during the Civil War, moved to Clay County, Texas, the county joining Archer County on the east. By 1889 he had quit working for the Wilson Ranch and had gone into farming for himself. In 1905, he gave up farming and went into the railroad construction business. He retired in 1920 and died in Wichita Falls in 1927.

Peacock, Curtis Eugene - Born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, his family moved to Mannford before 1910. His tenure at the Wilson Ranch is unknown but probably was in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s. He and his wife had five children and he died in 1987. He is interred, along with his wife, at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

Porter, Thomas Perry Sr. - Tom Perry was born in Austin, Texas in 1888. When he was 13 and living with his family in the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory, he ran away from home to escape an abusive father. He came to Keystone, Oklahoma, and was taken in by a Zickefoose family, who enrolled him in Keystone School in the fourth grade. In his late teens, he went to work as a cowboy for Cap Alexander on the Wilson Ranch. In 1910, he apparently had a tryst with Cap Alexander’s wife, May, and the result of this was Tommy Alexander. In later years, Tommy stated that he was named after Tom Porter and Herman Weer, two cowboys on the Wilson Ranch. Sometime after 1910, Tom Porter moved to Archer County and was a cowboy on the Wilson Ranch there. By 1920, he had married and left the Ranch. He worked at several other ranches before opening a tack and saddle shop in Seymour, Texas. He died there in 1974.

Stephens, Mary May – May was born in 1881 and her first marriage was to Joseph Henry Pendergraft. Two children resulted from this marriage, Gertha and Clarence. Mr. Pendergraft died in 1902. Both children were born in Missouri but shortly after Clarence’s birth, the family moved to Mannford where May’s sister, Mahala, was living. Gertha later married Arthur Bellis, the oldest son of Bill and Charity Bellis. May met Cap Alexander, they married and lived in Mannford for several years. She eventually divorced Cap and married a man from Lenapah, Charley Griffey. They moved to the Grove area for several years. For some reason, this marriage didn’t work either and May returned to the Mannford area, taking her Alexander name back. She died in Bristow in 1967 and is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Mannford.

Weer, John Herman – Herman was born in 1887 in Labette, Kansas. His parents had moved there from Indiana. Before his 10^th birthday the family had moved to Muskogee, Indian Territory. In 1896, his father, John Emmett Weer, went to court in Muskogee to get the members of the family put on the Creek Nation rolls. This effort failed. John Emmett was a store owner and at one point there was a settlement east of Bixby and south of Broken Arrow by the name of Weer. In 1917, when Herman registered for the draft, he was living in Mannford. He listed his employer as L.F. Wilson and place of employment as the Wilson Ranch. Before 1920, Luke Wilson asked him to go to Archer City and manage the dairy that the ranch was then starting. He did move there and lived in Archer City as late as 1942. Herman Weer died in Collinsville, Oklahoma in 1978 at the age of 91.

Wilson, Glenn Sylvester – Glenn was the son of Edward Wilson, Luke Wilson’s brother, and the on site family representative to the Wilson Ranch. He was born in 1872 in Illinois and married Dora Eckenrode there. Sometime before 1910, they moved to Archer County when he went to work for Luke Wilson. Glenn and John McCluskey would often travel to Mannford to confer with Cap Alexander. After Luke Wilson’s death and the demise of the ranch, Glenn moved back to Illinois and bought a farm. He died in 1938 in St. Louis.

Wilson, Luke Ferrell – Little remains to be said about him. He was obviously a very successful business man and those who knew and worked for him were quick to offer praises for his compassion and understanding. He died on May 17, 1928, and is interred in Charleston, Illinois, his hometown.

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.