An Old Man's Musings

Every generation has memories of things, people and places that the next generation has no clue about.  I was reminded of some of these the other day and decided to write them down.

The Locker or Ice Plant - By the time I came along, we had an electric refrigerator but no freezer.  When we butchered a calf, a hog or chickens, we had to rent a locker at the local ice plant to store our meat in.  Two or three times a month, we would drive into Sand Springs and get enough meat out of the locker to last until the next trip.  The ice plant in Sand Springs was located on south Main Street and I remember it well.

Feed Sacks - All our feed was purchased in 100 pound sacks.  Cattle cubes and hog pellets were all in burlap sacks but the chicken feed was in printed pattern material.  Mom always had to go to Alfred Hughes' feed store in Mannford with Dad because she had to pick out the sacks she needed for sewing shirts and dresses.  I've worn many a shirt made from feed sacks.  Burlap sacks had a mulitude of uses but the one I remember best was for fighting grass fires.  A five-gallon bucket full of water and a burlap sack were necessities when fires were burning.

Pumping Water - Our house didn't have indoor water and the well was about 70 yards away so my brother and I would have to haul water in our red Flyer wagon to the house.  We were fortunate to have a good well and many of our neighbors used it as well.  It was not uncommon to see someone drive up to the well and fill up their containers (usually 10 gallon cream cans).

The Milk Cow - Although my Dad was fond of beef cattle, we always had a milk cow at home to provide us with milk and butter.  Again, it was my brother's and my task to make sure the cow got milked.  Usually we would sit on a stool on the left side of the cow to milk her and her calf would be on the right side taking its half of the bounty.  Our first cow was a Jersey named Pet and later we got a Guernsey, Rosa.  Having a milk cow is one of those situations where you HAVE to be there twice a day to milk her.  If we did, by some chance, go on a trip or a vacation, we had to find someone very reliable to milk the cow.

Selling Eggs and Cream - Because the cow produced an abundance of milk, we were always able to sell the cream we didn't use as well as our extra eggs.  After running the milk through the cream separator, we would haul it up to Varnell's store to sell.  The eggs were sold to any of our neighbors who didn't happen to have chickens.

The Outhouse - We didn't get running water or a toilet into the house until I was a sophomore in high school.  Prior to that, we had to make the trip to the outhouse when needed.  Dad had built a "two holer" which we used for many years but I don't recall ever sharing it with someone else.  Maybe it was just a status symbol!  My brother, Gary, and I did have the responsibility for digging a new hole when the old one was getting full.  It was a kind of ritual that we would dig all day and, when Dad came home, he would tell us that it wasn't nearly deep enough.  The next day we would finish the job.  Dad would then use the tractor to pull the outhouse from the old site to the new one.

Baling and Hauling Hay - Over the years, we put up many thousands of bales of hay.  It was hard, nasty work but I don't think we were scarred for life for having done it.  In fact, for two summers, Gary and I worked for Sylvester Garrison in Silver City doing custom baling.  At the age of 13 and 14 respectively, we would go to Garrison's and live in their house for the hay season.

Saturday Night Baths - We didn't take baths as often then as we do today.  Once or twice a week, we would drag the galvanized tub into the living room, fill it with water and take our baths.  There were six of us in the family and, by the time the sixth person got to take a bath, the water was milky white.  We had to set the tub next to the wood stove in the wintertime to avoid freezing our rear ends off.  Our house was not very well insulated (in fact, it had none) and at one point we had to switch to a coal stove because the wood stove wouldn't put out enough heat.  This picture is of our house just before we moved into it.

Telephones - We didn't have a telephone for a few years.  When my Uncle Dannie died in Utah in 1952, the Trowers, who ran the phone company in Mannford, called our neighbors up on the hill, the Larremores.  The Larremores then came down to our house and told us that we needed to go into Mannford and call my grandparents.  Later, when we got a phone, it was an eight-party line.  You could tell by the ring who the call was for.

There is no way I can imagine what my children would write along this same vein.  I'm sure it will sound equally bizarre to their children but that is life!

Old Town Grocery Stores

In the 1950's and early 1960's, Mannford (the old town) had at least three grocery stores.  Convenience stores had been created by that time but Mannford wasn't ready for them.  In fact, the first convenience store in the United States was opened in Dallas, Texas, by the Southland Ice Company in the 1950's.  It later grew into what is today 7 Eleven stores.

The grocery stores I remember were Varnell's Grocery, Mannford Trading Company, and Vaught's Grocery.  Varnell's was located on South Main Street on the east side of the street.  Earl Varnell ran the grocery store and my most vivid memory of that store was that he had a cream station.  Did Earl's wife work there as well?  I don't remember.

In the early 1960's, we had a milk cow who could out-produce what our family could consume so we would run the excess milk through a cream separator and sell it in town at Varnell's Grocery.  Running the separator was hard work and you had to crank like mad to keep the speed up.  The cream was hauled into Varnell's and, as I recall, they measured the butterfat somehow to determine how much to pay you.

Hugh and Ethel Vaught's grocery store was across the street and west of the Bank.  I don't remember a lot about it except that it was relatively new and always appeared to be extremely clean.  Mr. and Mrs. Vaught, like most of the people in Mannford at that time, were wonderful people and really contributed to the community.  Mr. Vaught had run a grocery store just west of the drug store but sold it to a Mr. Willetts when he built his new store in the 1950's.  Mr. Willetts later sold that grocery store to Alfred Hughes who turned in into a feed store.

The other grocery store in Mannford at that time was the Mannford Trading Company.  It was probably the biggest store in town as well as being the oldest.  F.M.  Coonrod, who had opened the Mannford State Bank several years earlier, opened the Mannford Trading Company in about 1925.  I'm told that he and his wife, Jessa, ran the Trading Company for many years until their daughter, Juanita, and her husband, Les Hinton, took it over.

As a youngster, I found the Trading Company to be a fascinating place.  It was "L" shaped with an entrance on the south to Highway 51 and another entrance to the east opening to Main Street.  The groceries were all located on the west end of the store and best accessed from the Hwy. 51 entrance while the dry goods were on the north side of the store.

It, by the way, was the ancestor to today's Phelp's Market.  When the town moved in the early 1960's, Les and Juanita moved their grocery store to the new town.  The store was located across the walkway from the Bank.  After a few years, they decided to retire and talked their daughter, Peg, and her husband, Jack McIntire into running the store.  Later, in about 1969, the grocery store was sold to Bill and Harriett Phelps.

When my brother, Gary, and I were in our early teens, we made extra money by planting tomatoes and okra and then selling them to Mr. Hinton at the grocery store.  I can still visualize him standing behind the counter in that grocery store!