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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: June 30,1937
Name: Mrs. Rosie Gibson
Post Office Address: Mangum, Oklahoma, Route #3, Box10
Residence Address: 1706 New York Street
Date of Birth: December 19,1876
Place of Birth: Bollinger County, Missouri
Father: H. B. Bollinger
Information on father:
Mother: Rebecca Rickman
Place of Birth: Missouri
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Ruth Kerbo

I came to Greer County in 1883. I was nine years old and I remember very clearly how the country looked. There were no settlements between my father’s place and Mangum.

We settled on a place one mile west and a half mile north of the present site of Hester. My father bought the place from Mr. Beck for twenty-five dollars. It was a quarter section of land on Salt Fork River. Mr. Beck had made a dugout in the side of a bank. It was large and roomy and my mother took some old sheets and tacked them all around the walls and ceiling.

This made it so nice and clean and when these sheets got soiled we took them down, washed them and put them back on the walls.

Then mother saved all the gunny sacks she could get and made some rugs for the dirt floors. She opened these sacks up, sewed them together on the sewing machine and dyed them a pale blue. She used four thickness of sacks and dyed the two top layers.

Milkweed, which grows flat on the ground, like Bermuda grass, was boiled until the water in which it was boiled became reddish color. A handful of copperas was then put into the water and after it was dissolved, the sacks were put into the solution. When we took the sacks out they were of a pale blue color.

We lived on this place for three years then Father filed on a claim a half mile north of the present site of Hester. He hauled gyp rocks from across the river, west about three miles away and made the old rock house which is still standing and is in use today.

I used to sit on a box and beat up gyp rocks with a mallet to make plaster which Father plastered the house with on the inside. These gyp rocks made good plaster but it sets so quickly that we could not make up more than a gallon at a time. We used sand and made the plaster very much the same as if we had used regular cement.

Father raised wheat, owned his own binder and cut wheat for the neighbors. He also owned a thrasher.

It took about thirty men to operate this thrasher. I have set upon the separator many times and driven the horses around all day when hands were scarce. We could thrash two or three hundred bushels of wheat per day. Someone had to keep the straw thrown back out of the way. I used to go to everybody’s house during the thrashing season and help cook for the hands. This was for accommodation and I did not expect pay for it.

When a new neighbor moved into the community the settlers would each take him a couple of hens or meat of some kind. Everybody was friendly and we enjoyed our neighbors when they came to visit us.

My father and an uncle each gave an acre of land to furnish a location for a school house. This school house was located on the northwest corner of my father’s claim. This was named the Templeton School. Mr. Putnam was the first teacher. We had long home-made benches to sit on.

My father worked for a railroad company before he settled in Greer County. He built the first railroad through Mobeetie, Texas.

We came from Coalville, Texas and Father got a job to build a railroad out in West Texas and he had to buy a right to cross Greer County. He paid five dollars for the right for him and his men to cross. The officials at Fort Sill told him it was not safe because the Indians were considered very fierce. There was a long caravan of covered wagons following us.

At different places the Indians would slip up at night and bob our horses’ tails. After they did this they usually stole the horses, but Father talked to them and said he would blow their heads off with his shotgun if they bothered his horses again. They never hurt any of us and old Lone Wolf was rather friendly with us.

When we were traveling through the prairie the range cattle would come bellowing up to our wagons. Oftentimes we children would be walking along and when we heard a bunch of cattle coming we would hop into the wagons.

After we settled here my father owned some race horses. We rode them three times a day to keep them in practice. Sometimes two or three hundred dollars would be staked on the races.

I attended the first picnic at Mangum but I do not remember the date. My husband played in the first ball game at Mangum.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Osie King Gibson MGi7747788@aol.com> 09-2000.