Jim F. Nally


Nally, Jim F., 

Post Office:  Sulphur, Okla.

 Interview #4022, 

Interviewer, John F. Daugherty, 

Date:  May 11, 1937



My father was James E. Nally, born in Glasgow, Scotland, June 10, 1844.
He was a contractor and builder, and farmed some.

Mother was Lucretia Howe Nally,  She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, September 14, 1846.

They came to Jackson County, Ohio, in 1876.  Father was a Union Soldier during the Civil War.

There were sixteen children in our family.  Eight of these were boys.  Five of
these children were born in Ohio.

I was born January 10, 1871 in Ohio.

We moved to Massey, Indian Territory, in 1876.  We leased land from Grandma Griffith.  The grasshoppers ate our crop in 1878 and we moved to San Bois Bottom.  We lived here for two years and moved back to Massey.  We lived here until I married Clara E. Phillips.

We were the parents of two boys, who both became medical doctors and one girl who is a movie star and play writer.  She took her mother's name for her stage name and is known as Dorothy Phillips.  She wrote the play, "The World is a Stage."

My wife died when Dorothy was eight weeks old and an aunt in Illinois reared the three children.

I married my second wife, Laura Nally, in 1902 and we have six children.  I am farming now, but I was a contractor and builder when I was young.

I built the first eight-story building in Oklahoma, which was the First National
Bank building in Muskogee.  I also helped to build E.W. Marland's refinery at
Marland. 

I came to Murray County January 6, 1899.

My brother, George Nally, drove the stage from Davis to Sulphur.  This stage
brought the mail each day from Davis.  There were no highways nor good roads
when I first came here.  There were just trails over which a wagon passed with difficulty.  In those days most everybody rode horseback, with a Winchester laid across the lap.  If one met a man who turned off the trail rode around him he knew better than to speak to him.  If he spoke, the shots might fly thick and fast.

There were many men who were refugees from justice in the Territory and one
dared not speak to them of their past.  I very well remember a young man rode up to father's gate one day and asked for work.  Father told him there were plenty  of boys there to do his work.  The young man insisted, saying he was tired and wanted to rest for a few days.  Father told him he might stay and asked him his name.  He said "Just call me Blackie."  He stayed there two years and his pockets were full of gold all the time.  He wouldn't accept a penny for the work he did.  He worked well for five days a week, but every Saturday he disappeared and returned on Sunday or Monday.  We always felt that he was fleeing from the law, somewhere, but we knew better than to question him.  When he left, he disappeared as suddenly as he came, and we never heard of  him again.

There were very few doctors in those days.  I remember a Dr. Patterson, who lived near Krebs.  He kept an old mare in a pasture near his .  She wore a bell so he could find her quickly.  When he got a call,  he would hurry to the pasture,  catch his mare, put a bunch of grass in the bell to keep it from ringing and mount her without saddle or bridle.  Away he would gallop with his long whiskers flying over his shoulders.  He wouldn't go far until the grass would come out of the bell and it would ring noisily as he galloped down the trail toward his patient's .  He gave the same kind of brown powder for every disease.

A popular medicine at our house was yellow Paconne.  Wawu (wawn?), slippery elm, Pennyroyal, horehound and wild cherry bark were mixed and put into a gallon of whiskey.   This was allowed to stand for about a week.  Then we must take a glass about half full every morning before we could have any breakfast.  We had very little sickness in our family.

Our underwear was all made of red flannel which we bought in Denison, Texas, by the bolt and our pants were made of  spun jeans.  Father and mother carded and spun the yarn and wove this cloth.

Our shoes were made.  The soles and uppers were made of  tanned cow hide. The soles were fastened on with wooden shoe pegs, which we made.  Father would cut white oak timber into small blocks.  Then plane it and burnish one side.  Each night before we went to bed we must cut these blocks into small pegs.  Father would then sharpen the other two sides of the peg and it made a four pointed peg. They certainly did wear.  It didn't take more than a pair a year for each of us.

Mother kept sugar, salt, and soft soap, which she had made, hanging on the wall
in gourds.  We used this soft soap for bathing, washing clothes and dishes.
It was the only kind of soap we had.  We bought only sugar salt and green coffee at the store.  I have parched coffee many times in a Dutch oven over a few coals of fire in the yard.  I had a wooden paddle with which I kept it stirred to keep it from burning.  We had a coffee mill which hung on the wall, and when we would start to grind coffee it made as much noise as a T Model ford.  The walls creaked and groaned as we ground.

We had plenty of honey.  There were numerous hives of wild bees and each summer we would gather honey for winter use.  We raised our own buckwheat and had it ground at the mill at Krebs for buckwheat cakes.  Mother put up wild berries and grapes and we had May apples and nuts to eat in the raw state.

One day when I was just a boy, Father started me to Krebs with about eighty-five bushels of onions.  I was driving an ox team.  It was a warm day in September and when we got near Coal Creek they smelled the water and started running toward it.  I didn't know what to say to stop them, for we had no reins.  They were guided only by a long whip.  They ran into a deep hole of water.  The wagon went down and all the onions were dumped into the water.  The oxen swam out with the wagon and I had to swim for my life.  When I got  I told Father I wasn't going to drive those cattle any more and not long after this we traded for a good team of horses.

I used to attend camp meetings.  The Indians were more worshipful and respectful than the white men.  The Indians always took their places toward the front of the arbor, and there was often a bunch of white men sitting in the rear of the arbor, playing poker while the preacher delivered his message.  I found in the early days that the Indian was the gentleman and the white man was the outlaw.  These white men went barefoot and wore spurs on their bare feet.  Occasionally they would ride into the arbor and shoot into the air.

I was helping in the hay field on the J.J. Forsythe Ranch, sixteen miles west of
Muskogee, when Tulsa was laid out.  We all went.  I could have bought the lot on
which the Telephone Exchange building now stands for twelve dollars and fifty cents.

Mother used to make our straw hats.  She took cut straw and braided it into long braids, then whipped or sewed these braids together and shaped it into a hat.

I must tell you about our  made ice box.  We took poles and set them in the ground. There were four of them and to these we fastened shelves.  Then we took pieces of flannel and tore them into strips about two inches wide.  These we placed in a pan of water which set on top and let the ends hang to the ground.  The evaporation of the water kept the milk and butter cool.  This had to be put in a shady spot of course.

I have only two sisters living.  One is eighty and the other is eighty-three.

My father is buried at  Mangum.  He has a large G.A.R. monument at his grave.  Mother is buried at Stonewall.


        Transcribed by Brenda Choate and Dennis Muncrief, November, 2000.