Aug. 20,2011
Effie Mae Hunter Biography

 Effie Mae Hunter was born Oct. 19,1912 in Hammon, Oklahoma to Thomas Jefferson Hunter and Gracie Leona Kirkbride Hunter. She was the third surviving child born to them, all the rest had died at birth or at a young age. Out of 12 children only six survived in the Tom Hunter family. One a son, died at 17 from diabetes and the remaining son died at 19 in world war 2. Child birth was very difficult for women at that time in the century. Most couldn't afford doctor's care and as a result many babies died. 

Hammon Oklahoma is a town located at Highway junction 33 & 34, in two counties, Roger Mills and Custer counties. Most of the town lies in Roger Mills county, but some of the town extends into Custer county. Effie was born a few months after the titanic ship sank and during a time when it was very difficult for familes to make a living. It was a time of horse drawn buggies and eventually cars came along, but most of the people couldn't afford automobiles. There were no super markets, so the families farmed amd had to grow their own food and raise their own chickens, cattle or pigs for meat. She said the first automobile she saw scared her because to her the headlights looked like big eyes on a monster. She could remember riding a covered wagon a lot when they had to move or just go shopping, even though there were automobiles available. It was simply because her father couldn't afford to buy an automobile. Later, the covered wagon was put aside and they used other open air transportation (buggies) instead. Until (Papa) Tom won a new automobile from gambling.
Effie helped her mother can or dry all the food from their garden they could to feed their family and Gracie could make the best lovely cream cheese. How I wish I knew how she made it, Effie was never sure how she did it. Effie also learned to can, cook and crochet at a very young age. She said that her mom could crochet a very thin thread into beautiful lace and sell it to well off people to make money. One time, a well off lady had Gracie to make and attach lace to some of her daughter's underwear and as payment she gave Gracie several pairs for her daughters. You wouldn't see people share underwear these days. Effie's mother would also can beef and chicken both in jars when they could afford the chickens and the beef. She told of how her mother would wash the chickens with laundry soap until their meat was almost white and the water from the bath would be really dirty. But, she wanted those chickens clean. You can imagine how hard life was in those days. Coffee was hard to get and Gracie would brown cornmeal and use it as coffee. Sometimes there was a little chicory to added to the cornmeal for flavor. There was many times they ate nothing cornbread and water gravy, ( made from browned flour and water, sometimes with no salt or grease, just water added and make thick as you wanted it). Effie learned how to dry corn from her parents too. The corn was cut from the cob then spread on a roof to let dry in the sun for several days and covered at night with cheese cloth to prevent spoilage, then when dried enough, put up in containers. You would have to soak the corn a while before cooking it and was really good, much better than canned corn. Insects didn't seem to bother it when spread out on a roof, which was amazing I guess. You can buy dried corn in the supermarkets today. She also said her mother prepared sausage by stuffing the meat in the guts of the animal they slaughtered, Pigs, I guess. She often said they ate everything of the pig, except the squeal. Pore ole pig. But nothing was ever wasted by Effie's family.
Effie never knew her paternal grandmother, Cynthia Lockhart Hunter, because she died young, before Tom and Gracie were married. But she knew her paternal grandfather, William Hunter very well. Cynthia was actually his second wife and they had several children. But, he'd first been married in his teens to a girl that died after the birth of a child and they had two children. Pioneer life was evidently very hard on women, since many of them died during child birth. He was a former Texas Ranger and had worked as a cattle and sheep rancher. She often told of him raising sheep and goats, although he was a former cattleman. He tried to get her to drink the goat milk, which she didn't like. She said it was too sweet. The walkway to his home was covered with rounded smooth stones that were buried into the ground. Cobblestones? She never said, except they were hard on bare feet.
After his wife, Cynthia died, he remarried a Bohemian gypsy woman named Josie Fiddler/Feidler, she'd also been married previously. Effie said when they were first married, Josie was very shy at first but after she got to know them she insisted on them calling her grandma. Effie dearly loved her grandma Josie who could make cornbread that tasted like cake and homemade egg noodles. Josie was very superstitous about her garden and believed in planting flowers in from of her vegetables in case some one put a curse on the veggies so they wouldn't grow or produce. If they saw the flowers first they wouldn't put a curse on the veggies. Once Effie told of an incident when Jose had Gracie, her daughter in-law, kneel at her feet, and she was telling her something while thumping her between the eyes. It was evidently some kind of Bohemian thing. Effie never knew what it meant and her mother never told her, she probably didn't know either. Effie never told of how her father Tom got along with his stepmother, Josie, but I assume they got along all right. She had two boys named Charley and Frank. Charley hanged himself in a barn, but no one knew why and the last time she saw him was at a ball game. She was really sad because she liked her step-uncles very much.
Tom Hunter was a skinny little guy who was sharecropper and raised cotton to provide for his family.Tom was the age that he should have been sent to the army during world war one, but his health wasn't good, so he never had to serve in the military. Despite that, Tom was the type of person who wasn't afraid of anyone or to try anything. Gracie would help him in the fields until dark then she'd go home cook supper and do other chores in the home that women had to do. Effie said that often they would eat supper as late as ten O'Clock at night. Gracie tended her work at home as well as helping her husband in the fields. She had double work pushed onto her. A lot of the women in those had double work pushed on them and that's why some didn't survive. You can imagine how women these days could take that? Effie along with her siblings would work hard planting,chopping and picking cotton.They would also pull the seeds from the cotton and that would take days, because they didn't have machines to remove the cotton seeds and had to do it by hand. She would also help plow the ground with horses and plows, then plant the cotton along with her father,Tom. She was the eldest child and had to work like a man, since their two sons were too young to help. It was a very had life, but that was the only life they knew.
There was no entertainment other than church or family gatherings, but Effie's Mother was very religious and strict, so there wasn't much opportunity for her to get into trouble or to go to parties or dances. Her father Tom was also strict but not quite so religious They kept a very close eye on their children, especially the girls. Effie attended school until the eight grade and then quit because her parents couldn't afford to send her to high school. She would have had to move into a boarding school and they couldn't do that because of the money and they didn't want their daughter exposed to worldly things they thought would harm her and as a result, she lost out on a high school education. She later learned to play an organ by taking lessons from a neighbor and then playing music at the church. Church was where she later met her future husband. Effie's family moved a lot during her childhood. She said once that her father would fix an up old place that they'd moved into really nice and as soon as he did, he wanted to move again to another old place and do the same thing. They were constantly moving and her mother,Gracie must have really grew tired of moving, but Effie said she never complained.
Effie told of the many adventures she had as a child and first started school in Cogar, Oklahoma, a tiny depression struck place in Western Oklahoma. I believe it's in Grady county. Afterwards, she started in Elk City, Oklahoma when she was in the 2nd grade. The principal sat her on his lap, took a book and told her to read for him. Even at that young age, she was embarrassed to be sitting on a strange man's lap.She couldn't read a word for him, so he put her in the first grade. Later, they discovered she was able to go into the 2nd grade. When she and her sisters went to one school, they drove a buggy with a horse hitched to it. She was the driver since she was the oldest. When they came to a bridge just before the school house, she'd lash the horse with the whip and drive the buggy over the bridge at top speed. She probably didn't dare do that in front of her mother.
While she was living in Elk City, her mother raised a garden and would prepare the vegetables to sell. She'd wash them really well and fix them attractively so that people would buy them and would send Effie out in the town to sell to the neighbors. She told of one place she went and knocked on the door and heard someone ask her what she wanted.She told them she was selling vegetables. The person kept repeating the question until she realized it was a parrot. Then another place she went to, a man came to the door. He didn't want any vegetables but gave Effie a box of chocolate candy. Another house she was told to go to the back door and they weren't very nice, so she never went back again. She never got lost selling vegetables and her mother trusted her to come in before sundown. This day a parent wouldn't dare send their child out to do that, but those were different times, maybe safer times?
When she was about four years old her family moved to Oregon for a while, but returned to Oklahoma before she went to school. She had a little brother, Buddy who was born in Oregon but he died at birth. She also remembered a friend in Oregon who was her age, then years later learned that she'd became a nurse. The valley they lived at in Oregon was very beautiful and she spoke of the mountains that were so high and so deep that cars driving below looked like toys.The rivers were so deep blue that they shone like glass and she could see to the bottom, but her mother warned her not to get too close, because it was very deep. She said she wished they could have stayed in Oregon, she loved it. There were a lot of good memories there. Her uncle Charley brought home a big can of Christmas candy one Christmas. She had an uncle Alfred who also that made a big impression on her.They were her mother's brothers. But she said that her father had to keep them from fighting with each other. The older one, Alfred thought he was the boss and Charley resented being told what to do. Then once after working, her father brought home a big bucket of chili and it was a delicious treat. She told of riding on a train with her family while in Oregon and going through a tunnel as the conductor warned them to be very quiet because of train robbers. It was exciting to Effie and also scary. Once the whole family had to walk across a railroad bridge and heard a train coming. She said her feet were so small that she had to walk very carefully to keep from falling through the cracks on the bridge into the river below. Her father and sister Addie made it across in time, but she and her mother had to move off the tracks and hang on to the bridge as it roared by.
When they lived in Cogar, Oklahoma, she had neighbors that were supposedly into the occult. She told of how they would practice seances at their kitchen table. She said that the father of the family told a tale that when they were in the middle of one of their seances, they heard one of their children screaming in the next room. They ran in to look for him and couldn't find him, then they looked up and saw him hanging from the ceiling with two giant hands holding him close to the ceiling as if the hands were trying to pull him out through the ceiling. Spooky! Her parents were very superstitious too, they believed in omens and warnings. It probably came from the old celtic countries where their ancestors came from or from Indian superstitions.
Effie knew two girls that ran together and had unusual names. One was called Ima Pig and the other was Ura Hog. I'm inclined to think she was pulling my leg when she told me that story. But she swore it was true. Also another girl she knew was named Bennie, she was a big girl and according to Effie, Bennie was nasty about her habits. When Bennie got married she married a small man that like to beat on her. But one day she got fed up and threw him over an old wood stove. I don't think he abused her anymore. Then she told of another girl she knew or it was possibly Bennie? They hadn't seen her in a long time, since she'd married. But saw her walking across a field one day very upset. They found out she'd lost her only child, a boy from some terrible accident.
Her father,Tom loved to drink and gamble and most of the time he'd lose his money, but once he won enough to buy a new automobile. Gracie, her mother was very patient and put up with a lot from her husband but he wasn't an abusive man to his family. He was just reckless and sometimes that scared Effie. Effie told of how her father Tom would behave while he was drinking. He'd chop wood and throw the axe into the air and hoop like an Indian. They stayed away from him while he was chopping wood. Then, one evening while Gracie was getting ready to cook supper, she ask Tom what he'd like for supper. He was drinking of course and saw Effie standing outside looking into the window.
He said. "Lets fry Effie's eyeball."
Effie ran off and her mother had to go hunt for her and bring her back home.
Effie said that her father never hurt any of them while he was drinking, but they were afraid of him when he was drinking. Once he loaded the family up in a wagon and drove to a neighbor's house. He was driving drunk and yelling that he was going to kill an imaginary foe named, Sam Black, whoever he was. The neighbor calmed him down by showing him his new prize hogs. That ended the feud with Sam Black. Tom finally stopped his drinking years later but I imagine it took it's toll on his family. Effie never was sure if Sam Black really existed.
Effie told of one time she got in trouble. She and a group of friends found some empty whiskey bottles and someone took a picture of them pretending to drink out of the bottles. Mother,Gracie got hold of the pictures and Effie got in trouble for it. Her mother didn't believe in even pretending to drink. She wasn't allowed to go to dances either, but her mother had attended dances when she was young. Effie could never figure out why she and her sisters were never allowed to go. Years later she figured it was because Gracie knew what went on during those dances and didn't want her daughters subjected to it.
Effie told of when she along with her younger sister Addie used to visit her maternal grandmother,Annie Kirkbride Pyle. She always looked forward to visiting her and had fun playing with her young uncle,Eugene who was Gracie's little half brother. Gene was an ornery little booger and was about two or three years older than Effie. He would make mud pies and throw them on the ceiling of their home and Grandma Annie would allow it. Then, Effie and he together would take Effie's younger sister,Addie and take her for rides in his wagon through creeks and mud, getting her really dirty. But that little trick got them a spanking. But Effie had fun visiting her Grandma, Annie and always looked forward to visiting her.
When Effie was about 7 yrs old, the whole family came down with typhoid fever. Her maternal grandmother Annie died and so did two uncles that she loved very much. But the rest of the family survived. They also went through the Spanish flu that broke out during world war one and some of the family died. But Effie and her parents along with her three sisters and two brothers survived the sickness and a lot of world war one soldiers were blamed for bringing back the Spanish flu when they returned home. Effie remembered seeing young soldiers on a train leaving, going into the war durning world war one. It was when she was very small, but she could remember waving at them as the train left, taking the boys to be shipped overseas. So many of them never returned. Uncle Charley was one of the soldiers, but he went into the army near the end of the war and came home safely.
When Effie was about 18, she met a young man named Luther at church. She said he'd sat very quiet in church as though he wasn't paying any attention to anyone and of course all the girls were curious about him and the boys resented him. He'd came from Arkansas with his younger brother to find work in the cotton fields or any other kind of farm work. He was good looking with thick dark hair, hazel eyes and dressed nice when most of the boys in the neighborhood dressed like farmers. But this boy was different then the rest he didn't appear to be a farm type guy and he was a musician, he played the fiddle and could sing. He dated a few of the girls, then finally Effie and he dated and soon he asked her to marry him. She said later that after they were married she discovered that his nice shirts were full of little holes he'd patched but wasn't noticed at a distance. He was poor but had made an effort to look nice and presentable. Effie also said she always suspected he'd been jilted by another girl and she was his second choice. I think that bothered her some, but maybe it wasn't so. Although, one girl she knew told her that she was ugly but her husband Luther was goodlooking. One of her daughters told her that was just pure old mean jealousy on that girl's part. When she heard that, she'd just smile. Later however, she discovered that her husband Luther was mentally ill and it was going to be a challenge to keep going, to retain all her strength, to keep the marriage going, raise their children and love him dispite his problems. Today it's diagnosed as bio-polar.

 

Effie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug. 20,2011
Effie Mae Hunter Biography

Effie when she was four years old with her younger sister Addie.

Effie Mae Hunter was born Oct. 19,1912 in Hammon, Oklahoma to Thomas Jefferson Hunter and Gracie Leona Kirkbride Hunter. She was the third surviving child born to them, all the rest had died at birth or at a young age. Out of 12 children only six survived in the Tom Hunter family. One a son, died at 17 from diabetes and the remaining son died at 19 in world war 2. Child birth was very difficult for women at that time in the century. Most couldn't afford doctor's care and as a result many babies died.
Hammon Oklahoma is a town located at Highway junction 33 & 34, in two counties, Roger Mills and Custer counties. Most of the town lies in Roger Mills county, but some of the town extends into Custer county. Effie was born a few months after the titanic ship sank and during a time when it was very difficult for familes to make a living. It was a time of horse drawn buggies and eventually cars came along, but most of the people couldn't afford automobiles. There were no super markets, so the families farmed amd had to grow their own food and raise their own chickens, cattle or pigs for meat. She said the first automobile she saw scared her because to her the headlights looked like big eyes on a monster. She could remember riding a covered wagon a lot when they had to move or just go shopping, even though there were automobiles available. It was simply because her father couldn't afford to buy an automobile. Later, the covered wagon was put aside and they used other open air transportation (buggies) instead. Until (Papa) Tom won a new automobile from gambling.
Effie helped her mother can or dry all the food from their garden they could to feed their family and Gracie could make the best lovely cream cheese. How I wish I knew how she made it, Effie was never sure how she did it. Effie also learned to can, cook and crochet at a very young age. She said that her mom could crochet a very thin thread into beautiful lace and sell it to well off people to make money. One time, a well off lady had Gracie to make and attach lace to some of her daughter's underwear and as payment she gave Gracie several pairs for her daughters. You wouldn't see people share underwear these days. Effie's mother would also can beef and chicken both in jars when they could afford the chickens and the beef. She told of how her mother would wash the chickens with laundry soap until their meat was almost white and the water from the bath would be really dirty. But, she wanted those chickens clean. You can imagine how hard life was in those days. Coffee was hard to get and Gracie would brown cornmeal and use it as coffee. Sometimes there was a little chicory to added to the cornmeal for flavor. There was many times they ate nothing cornbread and water gravy, ( made from browned flour and water, sometimes with no salt or grease, just water added and make thick as you wanted it). Effie learned how to dry corn from her parents too. The corn was cut from the cob then spread on a roof to let dry in the sun for several days and covered at night with cheese cloth to prevent spoilage, then when dried enough, put up in containers. You would have to soak the corn a while before cooking it and was really good, much better than canned corn. Insects didn't seem to bother it when spread out on a roof, which was amazing I guess. You can buy dried corn in the supermarkets today. She also said her mother prepared sausage by stuffing the meat in the guts of the animal they slaughtered, Pigs, I guess. She often said they ate everything of the pig, except the squeal. Pore ole pig. But nothing was ever wasted by Effie's family.
Effie never knew her paternal grandmother, Cynthia Lockhart Hunter, because she died young, before Tom and Gracie were married. But she knew her paternal grandfather, William Hunter very well. Cynthia was actually his second wife and they had several children. But, he'd first been married in his teens to a girl that died after the birth of a child and they had two children. Pioneer life was evidently very hard on women, since many of them died during child birth. He was a former Texas Ranger and had worked as a cattle and sheep rancher. She often told of him raising sheep and goats, although he was a former cattleman. He tried to get her to drink the goat milk, which she didn't like. She said it was too sweet. The walkway to his home was covered with rounded smooth stones that were buried into the ground. Cobblestones? She never said, except they were hard on bare feet.
After his wife, Cynthia died, he remarried a Bohemian gypsy woman named Josie Fiddler/Feidler, she'd also been married previously. Effie said when they were first married, Josie was very shy at first but after she got to know them she insisted on them calling her grandma. Effie dearly loved her grandma Josie who could make cornbread that tasted like cake and homemade egg noodles. Josie was very superstitous about her garden and believed in planting flowers in from of her vegetables in case some one put a curse on the veggies so they wouldn't grow or produce. If they saw the flowers first they wouldn't put a curse on the veggies. Once Effie told of an incident when Jose had Gracie, her daughter in-law, kneel at her feet, and she was telling her something while thumping her between the eyes. It was evidently some kind of Bohemian thing. Effie never knew what it meant and her mother never told her, she probably didn't know either. Effie never told of how her father Tom got along with his stepmother, Josie, but I assume they got along all right. She had two boys named Charley and Frank. Charley hanged himself in a barn, but no one knew why and the last time she saw him was at a ball game. She was really sad because she liked her step-uncles very much.
Tom Hunter was a skinny little guy who was sharecropper and raised cotton to provide for his family.Tom was the age that he should have been sent to the army during world war one, but his health wasn't good, so he never had to serve in the military. Despite that, Tom was the type of person who wasn't afraid of anyone or to try anything. Gracie would help him in the fields until dark then she'd go home cook supper and do other chores in the home that women had to do. Effie said that often they would eat supper as late as ten O'Clock at night. Gracie tended her work at home as well as helping her husband in the fields. She had double work pushed onto her. A lot of the women in those had double work pushed on them and that's why some didn't survive. You can imagine how women these days could take that? Effie along with her siblings would work hard planting,chopping and picking cotton.They would also pull the seeds from the cotton and that would take days, because they didn't have machines to remove the cotton seeds and had to do it by hand. She would also help plow the ground with horses and plows, then plant the cotton along with her father,Tom. She was the eldest child and had to work like a man, since their two sons were too young to help. It was a very had life, but that was the only life they knew.
There was no entertainment other than church or family gatherings, but Effie's Mother was very religious and strict, so there wasn't much opportunity for her to get into trouble or to go to parties or dances. Her father Tom was also strict but not quite so religious They kept a very close eye on their children, especially the girls. Effie attended school until the eight grade and then quit because her parents couldn't afford to send her to high school. She would have had to move into a boarding school and they couldn't do that because of the money and they didn't want their daughter exposed to worldly things they thought would harm her and as a result, she lost out on a high school education. She later learned to play an organ by taking lessons from a neighbor and then playing music at the church. Church was where she later met her future husband. Effie's family moved a lot during her childhood. She said once that her father would fix an up old place that they'd moved into really nice and as soon as he did, he wanted to move again to another old place and do the same thing. They were constantly moving and her mother,Gracie must have really grew tired of moving, but Effie said she never complained.
Effie told of the many adventures she had as a child and first started school in Cogar, Oklahoma, a tiny depression struck place in Western Oklahoma. I believe it's in Grady county. Afterwards, she started in Elk City, Oklahoma when she was in the 2nd grade. The principal sat her on his lap, took a book and told her to read for him. Even at that young age, she was embarrassed to be sitting on a strange man's lap.She couldn't read a word for him, so he put her in the first grade. Later, they discovered she was able to go into the 2nd grade. When she and her sisters went to one school, they drove a buggy with a horse hitched to it. She was the driver since she was the oldest. When they came to a bridge just before the school house, she'd lash the horse with the whip and drive the buggy over the bridge at top speed. She probably didn't dare do that in front of her mother.
While she was living in Elk City, her mother raised a garden and would prepare the vegetables to sell. She'd wash them really well and fix them attractively so that people would buy them and would send Effie out in the town to sell to the neighbors. She told of one place she went and knocked on the door and heard someone ask her what she wanted.She told them she was selling vegetables. The person kept repeating the question until she realized it was a parrot. Then another place she went to, a man came to the door. He didn't want any vegetables but gave Effie a box of chocolate candy. Another house she was told to go to the back door and they weren't very nice, so she never went back again. She never got lost selling vegetables and her mother trusted her to come in before sundown. This day a parent wouldn't dare send their child out to do that, but those were different times, maybe safer times?
When she was about four years old her family moved to Oregon for a while, but returned to Oklahoma before she went to school. She had a little brother, Buddy who was born in Oregon but he died at birth. She also remembered a friend in Oregon who was her age, then years later learned that she'd became a nurse. The valley they lived at in Oregon was very beautiful and she spoke of the mountains that were so high and so deep that cars driving below looked like toys.The rivers were so deep blue that they shone like glass and she could see to the bottom, but her mother warned her not to get too close, because it was very deep. She said she wished they could have stayed in Oregon, she loved it. There were a lot of good memories there. Her uncle Charley brought home a big can of Christmas candy one Christmas. She had an uncle Alfred who also that made a big impression on her.They were her mother's brothers. But she said that her father had to keep them from fighting with each other. The older one, Alfred thought he was the boss and Charley resented being told what to do. Then once after working, her father brought home a big bucket of chili and it was a delicious treat. She told of riding on a train with her family while in Oregon and going through a tunnel as the conductor warned them to be very quiet because of train robbers. It was exciting to Effie and also scary. Once the whole family had to walk across a railroad bridge and heard a train coming. She said her feet were so small that she had to walk very carefully to keep from falling through the cracks on the bridge into the river below. Her father and sister Addie made it across in time, but she and her mother had to move off the tracks and hang on to the bridge as it roared by.
When they lived in Cogar, Oklahoma, she had neighbors that were supposedly into the occult. She told of how they would practice seances at their kitchen table. She said that the father of the family told a tale that when they were in the middle of one of their seances, they heard one of their children screaming in the next room. They ran in to look for him and couldn't find him, then they looked up and saw him hanging from the ceiling with two giant hands holding him close to the ceiling as if the hands were trying to pull him out through the ceiling. Spooky! Her parents were very superstitious too, they believed in omens and warnings. It probably came from the old celtic countries where their ancestors came from or from Indian superstitions.
Effie knew two girls that ran together and had unusual names. One was called Ima Pig and the other was Ura Hog. I'm inclined to think she was pulling my leg when she told me that story. But she swore it was true. Also another girl she knew was named Bennie, she was a big girl and according to Effie, Bennie was nasty about her habits. When Bennie got married she married a small man that like to beat on her. But one day she got fed up and threw him over an old wood stove. I don't think he abused her anymore. Then she told of another girl she knew or it was possibly Bennie? They hadn't seen her in a long time, since she'd married. But saw her walking across a field one day very upset. They found out she'd lost her only child, a boy from some terrible accident.
Her father,Tom loved to drink and gamble and most of the time he'd lose his money, but once he won enough to buy a new automobile. Gracie, her mother was very patient and put up with a lot from her husband but he wasn't an abusive man to his family. He was just reckless and sometimes that scared Effie. Effie told of how her father Tom would behave while he was drinking. He'd chop wood and throw the axe into the air and hoop like an Indian. They stayed away from him while he was chopping wood. Then, one evening while Gracie was getting ready to cook supper, she ask Tom what he'd like for supper. He was drinking of course and saw Effie standing outside looking into the window.
He said. "Lets fry Effie's eyeball."
Effie ran off and her mother had to go hunt for her and bring her back home.
Effie said that her father never hurt any of them while he was drinking, but they were afraid of him when he was drinking. Once he loaded the family up in a wagon and drove to a neighbor's house. He was driving drunk and yelling that he was going to kill an imaginary foe named, Sam Black, whoever he was. The neighbor calmed him down by showing him his new prize hogs. That ended the feud with Sam Black. Tom finally stopped his drinking years later but I imagine it took it's toll on his family. Effie never was sure if Sam Black really existed.
Effie told of one time she got in trouble. She and a group of friends found some empty whiskey bottles and someone took a picture of them pretending to drink out of the bottles. Mother,Gracie got hold of the pictures and Effie got in trouble for it. Her mother didn't believe in even pretending to drink. She wasn't allowed to go to dances either, but her mother had attended dances when she was young. Effie could never figure out why she and her sisters were never allowed to go. Years later she figured it was because Gracie knew what went on during those dances and didn't want her daughters subjected to it.
Effie told of when she along with her younger sister Addie used to visit her maternal grandmother,Annie Kirkbride Pyle. She always looked forward to visiting her and had fun playing with her young uncle,Eugene who was Gracie's little half brother. Gene was an ornery little booger and was about two or three years older than Effie. He would make mud pies and throw them on the ceiling of their home and Grandma Annie would allow it. Then, Effie and he together would take Effie's younger sister,Addie and take her for rides in his wagon through creeks and mud, getting her really dirty. But that little trick got them a spanking. But Effie had fun visiting her Grandma, Annie and always looked forward to visiting her.
When Effie was about 7 yrs old, the whole family came down with typhoid fever. Her maternal grandmother Annie died and so did two uncles that she loved very much. But the rest of the family survived. They also went through the Spanish flu that broke out during world war one and some of the family died. But Effie and her parents along with her three sisters and two brothers survived the sickness and a lot of world war one soldiers were blamed for bringing back the Spanish flu when they returned home. Effie remembered seeing young soldiers on a train leaving, going into the war durning world war one. It was when she was very small, but she could remember waving at them as the train left, taking the boys to be shipped overseas. So many of them never returned. Uncle Charley was one of the soldiers, but he went into the army near the end of the war and came home safely.
When Effie was about 18, she met a young man named Luther at church. She said he'd sat very quiet in church as though he wasn't paying any attention to anyone and of course all the girls were curious about him and the boys resented him. He'd came from Arkansas with his younger brother to find work in the cotton fields or any other kind of farm work. He was good looking with thick dark hair, hazel eyes and dressed nice when most of the boys in the neighborhood dressed like farmers. But this boy was different then the rest he didn't appear to be a farm type guy and he was a musician, he played the fiddle and could sing. He dated a few of the girls, then finally Effie and he dated and soon he asked her to marry him. She said later that after they were married she discovered that his nice shirts were full of little holes he'd patched but wasn't noticed at a distance. He was poor but had made an effort to look nice and presentable. Effie also said she always suspected he'd been jilted by another girl and she was his second choice. I think that bothered her some, but maybe it wasn't so. Although, one girl she knew told her that she was ugly but her husband Luther was goodlooking. One of her daughters told her that was just pure old mean jealousy on that girl's part. When she heard that, she'd just smile. Later however, she discovered that her husband Luther was mentally ill and it was going to be a challenge to keep going, to retain all her strength, to keep the marriage going, raise their children and love him dispite his problems. Today it's diagnosed as bio-polar.

 

Effie