1912-1923- Life on the Farm in Aline

After the death of Jim's father, Lewis F. Garrison, the family moved from "BlackJacks" to the farm in Aline.  I can't really imagine what their life was like there, but I think it was pretty hard. Children in those days were expected to be, and  were needed as, a part of the workforce. We can see from the inventory of Lewis Garrison's farm, that plowing and harvesting was still done by hand, with the help of  mule drawn farm machinery. Jim blended his own grain to feed his flock of chickens, and there would have been eggs to collect, cows to be milked and butter to be made. Mattie kept a vegetable garden to supply the kitchen. The farm would have been mostly self-sufficient. If you read "Mattie's Blog" you can see my grandmother's first hand account of the life of a farm woman in those days. https://rootsandbloomsgarrisons.blogspot.com/2016/02/matties-blog.html

Jim Garrison and his chickens

My cousin Stan is the best one to give a description of the farm, as he spent a good part of his childhood on it. All I remember of it is a windmill, buffalo wallows, and my father's warning of red ants- which so terrified me that I was afraid to leave the car!  In the summer, when we visited, it was very hot. One summer it went up to 113 degrees- and of course there was no air conditioning in those days so it was dangerously hot. Thunderstorms in Oklahoma could be violent, and there was the occasional threat of tornados. In the old days, there was no weather service or television warning when bad weather was coming. One had to watch the skies.

The farm house near Aline, with Jim, Stanley, and Mattie Garrison

I only know a few stories from the farm; I will leave the rest to Stan and Saundra, who grew up in Oklahoma and surely know many. The first event was a lasting one for Elgin, my father; and one which his parents, as many parents do, surely regretted terribly. They had burned off a field to get it ready for plowing, and the field was still smoldering and white-hot. My father was just a toddler- too young to understand- and wandered a ways onto it before he realized his feet were being burned. At that point any step he took burned again, so he stood there screaming until he was rescued. His feet were badly burned, and he lost his outer toe on each foot. He had sensitive feet all his life, though he never said they were painful.

Recently Stan told me that Bob, his father, also had a lasting injury. He was injured by a hay-rake, and had a bad leg for most of his life.

Aunt Aletheia also told me of a near accident; she was riding the hay rake when the team of mules took off and while they were galloping along the hayrake flipped with the tines upward, so if she had fallen onto them she would have been impaled. She said her father was very angry- likely he was scared half to death that he might have lost her.

There are also funny stories from the farm; once when my father was unhappy with my behavior as a teen, my grandmother calmly reminded him that he and Bob used to race around the dining table on their tricycles.

Bob, Aleitha, and Elgin Garrison

Another time, after grandma had warned them not to go near the bunkhouse, as some of the hands had come down with something contageous, and of course the boys ignored the warning, went in, and both got sick.

The children had many chores to keep up with, and from grandma's narrative, they had a long walk to school. They would have returned to chores, and any homework or reading would have been done by gas lamp in those days. But there were good times as well; swimming and fishing in the Eagle Chief Creek,  visits to town, church picnics. They were always close with Mattie's family, and I know Uncle Jack  mentioned a visit up to Oklahoma, so I imagine the family from Texas came up now and then and the family from Oklahoma went down to Texas as well.

Aleitha, Nancy Rodgers Garrison, Bob Rodgers?, Bob Garrison, Jim and Mattie - this may be one of Elgin's earliest photos!

Bob Garrison standing on the mule- the back of the picture says the other boy was Jim Garrison but he looks too young to me! Elgin was blonde...so perhaps this was him...

This picture was marked "El Reno" which is  a town outside of Oklahoma City- Aletheia on the mule and Mattie in between the two ladies

Nancy Garrison stayed with them part of the time; Grandma told of her helping her in the family vegetable garden. She must have enjoyed being able to spend time with her only grandchildren. In 1920, Nancy was 69 years old and living with her brother, Robert Rogers, and his wife Katie, in Eagle Chief Oklahoma.

As my father, Lewis Elgin Garrison, was the namesake of Lewis F. Garrison, she gave him several family treasures; a red and white crystal cup with L.F. Garrison written on it, a silver baby cup and spoon, a large diamond that his grandfather had found in the Arkansas diamond fields (Crater of Diamonds State Park) and his pocket watch. Unfortunately, the diamond and the silver were lost forever when my parent's home was robbed in Houston one Christmas season after my father was taken to the hospital while suffering with cancer. (Apparently thieves listened in to the ambulance calls.) There was a story about the pocket watch that was a near loss- my father went swimming in the creek and forgot the watch was in his pocket; he dove and dove and couldn't find it; went home to lunch and couldn't eat because he was so upset about it; then returned to the creek and dove and dove again until he finally found it!