What Makes a Man

I recently wrote a letter to my paternal grandfather's brother, Bo.  I asked him about his memories of my grandfather, Charles Bryant Nall, who died when I was 20 years old. Today I received a letter back, written by Bo's wife Bette, relaying Bo's recollections:

...Since Bo was 4 years younger than Charles and the fact that Charles married so young, Bo doesn't seem to remember very many specific incidents while Charles was still at home. 

It seemed to Bo that when Bo was around 6 years old and Charles was 10 years old that Charles was already doing the work of a grown man. At this early age Charles worked in the fields planting and chopping cotton, cutting and bundling maize (milo) by hand, and helping tend the cows and hogs. By age 12 he was driving the family pickup wherever they needed to go. When he was 12, Dena was 10, Bo 8, George 6, and Larry, 4. Since he was the oldest he received the brunt of the workload. But back then everyone in the family did have to help out to survive. Anyway, his younger siblings were probably a nuisance to him. Many years this family didn't start their school year until after Thanksgiving.

Bo does recall that Charles was the only one old enough to go hunting and traping with Rufus and Uncle John Wheeler.

Farmers and Ranchers in the area said they would rather have Charles work for them than any grown man available. He was responsible and hard working. Some of the jobs he was hired to do included fence building and running farm equipment. Pay was $6/day. 

Charles did play football in high school. He was a valuable star player for the Benjamin 6 man team. But he played against his Dad's wishes. If he had an after school practice or was late getting in from a game, someone had to bring him home or he had to walk home (8 miles). And he also had to keep up with his home chores. It was such a hassle that it was shored lived. 

Sue and Charles were 16 and 17 (sept 18, 1952) when they married so neither completed school. After they were married Charles worked as a ranch/farmhand on a ranch north of Benjamin on the Little Wichita River. Part of his job included checking miles and miles of fences on horseback. For this job he was furnished his own string of horses. He would need a different horse each day. Bo remembered that Charles really liked that part of his job and that he earned $125/month and was paid once a month. He and Sue had a hard time living out there and making ends meet. So he and a family friend (E.J. Ward) started roofing houses together. One aspect of their roofing houses together included tar foofing using hot pots. Because of this enterprise it was necessary to move to Childress, Texas for a time. 

During this time the rest of the family moved from the farm into Seymour (1953). Charles and Sue then also moved to Seymour where they were able to buy a small house. Willie Belle and Rufus had acquired one also, across the street. 

This is when Charles went to work for John M. Edwards at the M System grocery store there in Seymour. He soon became manager. Bo worked for him after school and on weekends while he was in high school. After some time passed Charles became the manager for several M System stores. During this time he also trained and became a licensed pilot so he could check on the stores. 

Charles was a really good brother and a respected upstanding man! We both loved and looked up to him. 

I really appreciate the time taken to answer my questions. I loved learning about my Bampy's younger years.

Until next time,
Becky Drake

Charles, Dena, Bo, George and Larry

Grandma's House

We are finally moved out of our first house. We bought it in May/June of 2006 and officially close today, November 29, 2016. We lived there for 10 years. That house will hold a lot of special memories and thankfully due to social media and smart phones, most of them are well documented.

Today I posted a picture of my paternal Great Grandmother's dining room table full of guests. I asked if anyone knew more about the occasion and her house in general,  like who built it and when. My Great Aunt Bette commented with wonderful detail. Her parents were guests at that table.

"Bo or I took the photo on Thanksgiving 1966. The housebuilding was a family affair. It was built approx.1962-63.Willie Belle and Rufus tore down and salvaged lumber from Larence Phillip's old house. Charles (Nall) hauled framing lumber from Seymour,Tx. to get it started. Rufus and Bo handmixed cement for the footing Bo laid the blocks and did most of the work in building it (on weekends) as he worked fulltime at Safeway. Charles built the cabinets in a shop in Seymour and hauled them up. Bo installed them. I'm sure George helped hang sheetrock and did other jobs as he could Bo remembers when it was finished that the only bill was $600 at Jones Lumber."

In the photo: My great grandmother, Willie Belle, is standing, my great grandpa, Rufus, is seated at the head of the table, my great uncle Larry is seated with his back to camera, to his right is my great uncle George, and across the table are Mr. and Mrs. Brock (the in-laws of my great uncle Bo and parents of Bette.)

 Charles was my grandfather,  the eldest son of Rufus and Willie Belle. For more about this family's transition from Texas to Arkansas  (where this house was built) check out my earlier post The Big Move. 

Lucky To Be Alive

This week's writing prompt is "Luck of the Irish". I considered writing about a few ancestors I have traced back to Ireland, but felt that it would be a bit dry and fact based. I also thought about writing about my 23 and Me DNA results that said I am 63.9% British and Irish but I didn't know what else I would say since it has been nearly two years since receiving my results and I still don't fully understand how to read them, aside from ancestry composition. Then last minute it hit me... I'll write about my dad!




Now my Dad isn't exactly what you would call a lucky man. In fact, growing up he would always say "If it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't  have any at all." But after some thought I decided that I would have to disagree. You see my dad has had too many near death experiences, only to come out on the other side still breathing to be called unlucky.

My dad first cheated death when he was just an infant, around 6 months of age. He swallowed a safety pin. After a tracheotomy to help him breathe the safety pin became lodged in his lung. At one point the respirator quit working and Grandpa Rufus and the attending nurse had to get it up and running again. In order to remove the safety pin from his lung the doctors had to nearly cut his arm off, reaching in from behind at his shoulder to remove the pin. It was a very close call. I can still remember being a little girl and massaging my daddy's sore back and tracing that scar, that reached from right under his armpit all the way up to the top of his shoulder, with my tiny fingers.

Now being a rambunctious little boy (My Mammy, his mother, always spoke of how he kept her on her toes.) at the age of five or six, he decided to climb a tree one Sunday morning (yes, Sunday, before church), when a limb broke and he came crashing down, only to hit his head on the retaining wall beside the tree. Not long after that he would tie a make-shift cape around his neck and jump from the roof of the house. The boy was fearless. Or hard headed. Maybe both.

At the age of about 15, he was driving the family's tractor from his dad's place to Mr. Odell Brown's when it slipped out of gear and the brakes wouldn't work. It began to "frog hop" first the front left tire hitting the ground followed by the back right. He was going down hill and was only gaining momentum, while the tractor ride was becoming more and more violent. He managed to jump off right before the tractor began to roll end over end. And as if that experience with a tractor wasn't enough, fast forward a few more years to when he was fueling up his the family's 8N Ford tractor.  Dad recalled that the exhaust on that little tractor was hot and it was near overheating. When he began filling it with gas some splashed onto the exhaust and before he knew it the tractor was in flames. Not too far off in the distance was the farm propane thank. Some quick thinking and he began kicking up all the dirt he could and threw it on the tractor until finally the fire went out. Another close call.



He's not even 18 yet, and I'm just getting started. Sometime in either his Junior or Senior year of High School (He remembers almost not graduating because of missing so much school) he found himself hanging side by side with a half skinned calf, on a gambrel-bar, used in dressing animals at the family owned processing plant in Canehill - known as McClellans. Dad was skinning a black angus calf when the cord of the hoist had come unplugged. FDA regulations state that the electrical outlets must be 10 feet up the wall. Now growing up around the processing plant I have an good understanding of how wet and slippery and kind of bulky the boots and aprons can be. I didn't spend much time on the kill floor, but I remember  the conditions very well. Dad, dressed in his heavy, yellow apron and black rubber boots, got out the ladder and began to climb it in order plug the hoist back in. His boots would've been covered in blood and other slippery animal excretions and of course, he slipped, and when he did, he fell into the hook on the gambrel bar and was left hanging. Next door his mom and dad were processing chickens and just inside past the cooler, his Granddad Rufus and Grandma Willie Belle were cutting meat. There was a lot of machinery running and no one could hear him screaming for help. He said he eventually used his good arm to wedge it between him and the half-skinned calf and was able to push himself off, just before Rufus had shut off the band saw. Once he did, Grandma Willie Belle heard him yelling and they came running. He recalls his granddad telling him it wasn't that bad, saying, "I've had worse in my eye-ball". Of course, he hadn't, and dad was taken to the local doctor in town, Dr. Tucker. A fairly good indicator of the times, he remembers the nurse cleaning his wound just in time for the ashes from Dr. Tucker's cigarette to fall into his wound.

The next tale come from right around the time I was born. He and his best friend Cary Bartholomew and Cary's younger brother Mitch were trying to load some cattle into a gooseneck trailer when the truck slipped out of gear and began to roll down hill. Dad recalled that Mitch ran for the truck first, but that Cary yelled at him to stop. Dad being closer to the truck anyway, decided he'd try to get in and try to stop it. He reached the truck and just as soon as he got the door open and started to step in the trailer jack-knifed and crushed the door into his chest and neck. Crushing his windpipe and lungs. The last thing he remembered was slapping the back glass just before passing out and seeing a white light. By then Cary made it to the truck and entered in on the passenger side giving it some gas. The tires spun out but he was able to move the truck about a foot, which was just enough slack to let the door open enough for dad to fall out. Working like he did on the farm, my dad was a pretty stout young man. He recalls the ER doctor telling him if he hadn't of been quite so muscular the impact of that trailer pinning him in the door would've left him with pizza for lungs.

Fast forward to when I was about 11 or 12. I had my heart set on getting a horse so Dad bought me one. A green broke strawberry roan filly. She got out one day and Dad was trying to herd her in the right direction with the truck. She was running at him hard and made no signs of stopping for the truck, just before she jumped right in the back,  he cut the wheels hard and she clipped the back side sending the truck rolling. The horse and Dad made it out alive, but the truck was totaled. I remember that horse with fondness and then also not-so-much. She was very gentle as long as you were petting her. But once the saddle went on, it was a different story. When he was trying to break her, he and Dawna each took turns riding her so she would be completely wore out by the time it was my turn in the saddle. After what seemed like an eternity, it was my turn. I climbed on and was ready for the ride of my life but she just stood there, refusing to move. He told me to give her a little kick. I did, and she just stood there. He told me to kick her again, and again she just stood there. Then he told me to kick her harder, and you guessed it - she just stood there! Finally he said, "Beck, I can spit harder than you can kick!" And I thought to myself, "Oh, yeah?" So I hauled off and kicked her in the flanks with all I had and well... that was the last thing I remembered before coming too on the outside of the corral screaming at Dawna who was coming in across the field through the gate. I sure was sore and thought I had broken my arm, but the doctor in Lincoln said I had just bruised the bone.

Another close call was when Dad was brush hogging and stirred up a hornets nest. He was stung so many times that he swelled up so badly he had to put a straw in his mouth just to get air.

There are many more close calls, as it can be a dangerous job being a cattle farmer, and even more so working at the sale barn. I remember some of my favorite times was when he would come home from the sale with all his stories of near injury to both himself and the boys he worked with. My dad may not be one much for luck when it comes to equipment working, or things going right, but I'd say he's definitely got a guardian angel when it comes to keeping him alive, and I couldn't be more grateful! I love you Dad!

Until next week,
Becky

And don't forget to check out my blogging partner in this #52Ancestors challenge - my talented SIL over at Days of Our Lives. This week she uses Irish Limericks.

*Winnie Sue's sister, Francis, says they drove to the hospital in their station wagon with a mattress in the back and made Winnie Sue and Charles go take a nap in it while she watched over Johnny. She said that because he had that trach you couldn't hear him crying but you could see his tears. Such a pitiful story but amazing he survived!!