From roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com Wed Mar 8 08:43:15 2006 Received: from mail.rootsweb.com (mail.rootsweb.com [192.168.65.34]) by admin.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k28FhFjb003387; Wed, 8 Mar 2006 08:43:15 -0700 Received: from roots-l.rootsweb.com (roots-l.rootsweb.com [66.43.16.22]) by mail.rootsweb.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k28FhF1b028037 for ; Wed, 8 Mar 2006 08:43:15 -0700 Received: from roots-l.rootsweb.com (roots-l [127.0.0.1]) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id k28DD6FI001967 for ; Wed, 8 Mar 2006 08:13:06 -0500 Received: (from roots-in@localhost) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.8/Submit) id k28DD6G1001966 for roots-approved@rootsweb.com; Wed, 8 Mar 2006 08:13:06 -0500 Received: from lists5.rootsweb.com (lists5.rootsweb.com [66.43.27.41]) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with SMTP id k28CMdFI001823 for ; Wed, 8 Mar 2006 07:22:39 -0500 Received: (from slist@localhost) by lists5.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) id k28Eqaua004514 for roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com; Wed, 8 Mar 2006 07:52:36 -0700 X-Envelope-From: paul_odlesr@yahoo.com Wed Mar 8 07:52:36 2006 Received: from mail.rootsweb.com (mail.rootsweb.com [192.168.65.34]) by admin.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k28Eqajb004503 for ; Wed, 8 Mar 2006 07:52:36 -0700 Received: from web60912.mail.yahoo.com (web60912.mail.yahoo.com [209.73.179.1]) by mail.rootsweb.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with SMTP id k28EqZXC005109 for ; Wed, 8 Mar 2006 07:52:35 -0700 Received: (qmail 22126 invoked by uid 60001); 8 Mar 2006 14:52:30 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=NyW3iD2AbOk1/2z/DlOR2vTpvsI0WoWqe6ccfn7rmuZh3gLZiaiNpo4sY2AqAzknn8C9PgVoa0cuUaUhRkAiHXoosS3E2CX8akPJFdplJlrsQY/1jz+BQcPeeSgFCC17HFOUAYUgBwzgzeeslmOUkvy9QEQYnLWlswbn2Rk2xH0= ; Message-ID: <20060308145230.22123.qmail@web60912.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [66.141.90.216] by web60912.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 08 Mar 2006 06:52:30 PST Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 06:52:30 -0800 (PST) From: Paul Odle To: Roots Webb MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 192.168.65.34 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 192.168.65.34 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by lists5.rootsweb.com id k28Eqaua004514 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by roots-l.rootsweb.com id k28CMdFI001823 Sender: roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com Subject: [ROOTS-L] THE JESS HOLLADAY HOMESTEAD The Jess Holliday Homestead In around the year 1937 or 1938, my parents Jake and Hazel (Holladay) Odle, my brother Orville Lester (Buddy) Odle, Mark Marksmen (a friend of my dad) and I moved from Stillwater, Oklahoma to my great grandparents homestead; a mile west of Banner, Oklahoma and three miles south. My Great Grandfather JESSE DAVID HOLLADAY/HOLLIDAY had just passed away, and Great Grandma (ELLA VENORA BIBLE) HOLLIDAY was living on the farm by herself. My father and his friend Mark had been building Gallagher Hall at Oklahoma State University and were out of work. So the move to the homestead benefited everyone concerned. The narrow dirt road leading from hy-way Route 66 south to the Holliday Homestead was nearly impossible to drive on after a rainstorm. When the road was dry it had deep staggering ruts caused by the big car wheels of the day. It was un-lady like for women to drive a car. Driving a car was a man thing. Once in awhile my mother loaded us boys and my great Grandma Holliday in Marks car to drive to banner for supplies. Grandmother Holliday was afraid to ride in the car with my mother driving. The Thinking in those days was that women were not smart enough to drive cars. My mother never had a driver’s license. She never drove a car again after we moved off of the homestead. The old farmhouse set back about a half block off the old narrow dirt road. The drive way was lined with native cedar trees. The front yard had the greenest grass with thousands of pretty wild flowers growing in the grass. It was not un-common to see snakes enjoying the green grass and wild flowers. My brother Bud and I loved to pick the flowers and bring our mom daily bouquets. There was no electricity or running water in the country in those days, or in-door flush toilets. You had to keep the wood box filled with split kindling to fill the wood cook stove. The Wood cook stove sat against the south kitchen wall with the back porch door facing the west. There was a covered back porch across the back of the house. On the South West corner of the back porch was a water cistern, where you could pump water for the house. There was a white enamel water bucket sitting on a wooden table with a big dipper in it. Every one drank water from the water dipper. There was no time to be ! concerned about germs!! About 25 foot from the back porch west of the house stood the wood garage with a dirt floor with a strong smell of motor oil that had leaked out of the car on the ground. About 10 foot west of the garage and about 10 foot south were the chicken house and pen. There were lots of hen nests in the hen house. There was always clucking hens sitting on nest of eggs and some of the nests had wild barn cats that had just given birth to kittens. Sometimes when we would reach under a sitting hen to gather her eggs, we would get a scare when instead of an egg in our hand we had a bull snake that had been sucking eggs. Just a little west of the chicken house was a four hole out house, each hole a little smaller than the other. There were always spider’s webs and spiders about 6 inches below each hole. As a little boy I enjoyed wetting on the spider webs, as I was afraid to sit down with those spider webs under me. There was plenty of reading material in the out house, for you see toilet tissue was unheard of, instead we had the Sears and ROEBUCK Catalog and the Wards Catalog. If you were real Country you might have corncobs. There was a creek a fourth of a mile north of the house that was a great place to catch catfish, big turtles and to shoot frogs. You can’t beat a dinner of catfish, frog legs, and fried turtle with its seven flavors of meat. The Creek was shaded by over hanging tree limbs and hundreds of water moccasins would drop out of the trees into the water. I guess you could say we lived on the edge in those days. There was a path worn from the back door to the out house, and s! ome times you had to jump over snakes to get from one place to the other. There was a red clay hill just south of the back porch that was fun to run up & down. At one time that hill was the family dug out where they lived in the land run days, before they could build a house on their homestead. In the living room, I remember a tall beautiful grandfathers clock that chimed very loudly on the hour and half hour. You could count the chimes and know what time it was. There was also a player piano that would play these rolls of music; you can also play it like a regular piano. I also remember this old victrola that you turned a handle on the side to crank it up and the big records of the 1920’s. Mark lives in a mobile home between the back porch and the Garage. That was the first trailer house I ever saw. He had a car with a rumble seat, where the trunk of a car is suppose to be. Every morning at five a.m. Mark would eat breakfast. For breakfast he would peel and slice potato’s supper thin & fry them in deep fat, like potato chips. My brother Bud and I would lay in bed until the grandfather clock chimed five times, we would jump out of bed and go eat breakfast with Mark. What a treat!!! Our mom never fixed potato chips for breakfast. Mom use to render lard off of pork in the oven and we would have pork rinds to eat, lard to cook with and to make lye soap.. Some one in Banner gave me a baby goat for a pet, everyone in our family loved to play with this goat. We taught the goat to but us in the rear end. Even great Grandma Holliday love to get the goat to butt her in the rear. It was the simple things that brought joy into our lives in those days. Kids had to use their imagination to entertain themselves. I shall always cherish my childhood days on the HOLLIDAY HOMESTEAD. Jesse Holladay’s name was spelled HOLLIDAY on this land deed signed by President McKinley, so the family spelled their name HOLLIDAY ever after. By Paul Odle --------------------------------- Yahoo! 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