How to show your Nephew love.

Little Britches is a happy guy. 

He basks in his family's love and attention. 

We can't help but give him lots to bask in cause he is so cute and so sweet. 

 

When I got home from work today Kita, Eric and Little Britches (Alex) were already at my house.  Mattie & James were on their way over too.  Aunt Mattie found some cute stuff for Alex and she wanted to drop it off on the way to dinner. 

Here is the hat Mattie found. 

 

Once he started smiling at his Aunt Mattie she couldn't help herself. 

She just had to pick him up and love on him.

 

Kiss, Kiss, Smile, Kiss, Eskimo Kiss!

 

Then his Uncle James had to take a turn. 

He took a different way to show Alex some love.

Tummy raspberry, Air plane ride, Smile check, Air plane ride, hugs. 

 

He liked both ways.  Then his Aunt Mattie flew him to his Grandma.  She needed to give him a few hugs before he had to go home. 

 

If the weather cooperates tomorrow then I am going to go to the zoo.  I took half the day off and I really hope it doesn't rain.  I don't have enough pictures of him yet.  ;)

 

 

 

 

 

Riches

A few weeks ago we took the back roads part of the way to Missouri.  We were looking for a ghost town and it took a few turnarounds to locate it.  We stopped at the Kansas/Oklahoma border and took this picture at one of our wrong turns.

There are several small towns close to the border but there was no longer any signs posted about where to turn for the ghost town. This was a good wrong turn.  I was glad to find this marker and to take a picture of it.  (One branch of my family is Wyandotte.  Spelled Wyandot on this marker.  On a previous trip we drove through Wyandotte OK and stopped at the Wyandotte Indian Cemetery.)  We had to plug in the GPS and enter the name of the ghost town to get directions to find it. 

Picher Oklahoma 

 

 

As you can see not much is left of the town of Picher.  It is one of the USA's largest superfund cleanup sites.  The trailings (chat piles) left over from the lead and zinc mining ruined the soil and ground water in the whole area.  Despite the government spending all of that money to clean the area up it was still not a healthy place to live.  The mining also left even the very ground that the homes and school was built on unstable.  The people that called this town home did not want to leave.  This was their home.  This is where their family was from.  They didn't want to sell their land and homes to the government and move.  Then in 2008 there was a tornado that hit this small town.  It killed 8 people, hurt about 150 and damaged so much of what was left.  That proved to be too much and most of the people finally left.  The 2010 census showed only 20 people now live in this town.  The school has been boarded up.  Older homes and the old church show damage that looks like it could have come from the tornado.  There is a small neighborhood of the newer brick homes that have been emptied out and are just shells.  There are empty lots all over town and some slabs still have traces of the floor tiles from where somebody's home was.  The historical marker stated that the mining started in 1905.  That is 2 years before Oklahoma was a state.  It was still Indian Territory until 1907 and the land was owned by the Quapaw tribe.  Very few of the real land owners received royalties from the mining.

 

  The marker also mentioned that the Indians became rich from the mining. 

 

Here are a few pictures of the wealth mentioned in the historical marker.  

 

 

 

The stupidity of this is overwhelming.  To so abuse the ground... that it poisons the children is shocking.  I don't know enough of the story to correctly lame blame.  I can't imagine that the families, that were uprooted from their homes and moved to Indian Territory, would have made this choice if they knew they would contaminate 34 percent of all children living in the area with lead poisoning.  Take a moment and look up each of the tribes mentioned on the marker in Wikipedia.  They were all from the great lakes area.  Forced out for one reason or another.  Moved further and further west until they were "given" land in Indian Territory.  It is a sad history.

 

Wikipedia states that over 20 billion worth of ore was taken from this area in a 30 year period. 

 

20 billion....billion with a B

 

Somebody got very wealthy.

I don't believe that the wealth stayed in this town. 

I think it went into pockets that walked off long before this town died.

 

Outside!

It is late.  I should be getting ready for bed.  But I just had to post some of the photos I captured this weekend. 
I love when we get to go to MO and visit.  Mr. Man is such a busy boy and I have a blast following him around with my camera. 
He loves to play outside.  If he is inside you can bet you will hear "I wanna go outside" over and over.  Two year olds are insistent and seldom give up.

Here are some of the pictures I captured from this weekend.

 

We had a great trip.  Can't wait until we go next month when we are gonna do the Branson thing.  Good night all! I gotta go get ready for bed. 

OH!  The picture of Mr. Man kissing the Bear...... I didn't take it.  His PaPa did.  Did a good job on it too. 

 

 

Thank you from the past

Last week while going though old photos my Brother found a thank you letter sent from the Children's Home we grew up in.  Both of us had at one time lived with the houseparent that sent this letter.  For some reason my Grams kept it.  I am glad she did.  It was nice to see the names of the kids that wrote a thank you to her.  Grams was always knitting or crocheting hats, house shoes and mittens.  I don't know if Danny & I still lived there at the time of this letter or not.  We did not write a thank you to her. 

Here is the scanned letter from kids and the houseparent.  The address is no longer any good.  The Children's Home has moved to Claremore and the house has been torn down. 

 

While thinking about this letter this past week I realized something.  We may have been wards of the State but Grams & Gramps had visitation rights on weekends and holidays.  I can't express how much it meant to me to know, without any doubts, that I was loved by her.  

 

Old Family Photos!

I have spent much time in the last few weeks with family.  We lost our matriarch last week.  I will try and write about her again later.  Now is too soon.  But I love old photos and love old family photos even more.  There are so many that I was not able to go through all of them.  I tried but I was always distracted by kids, family stories, making plans and food.......

Several years ago I went though one of the boxes with Grams and she sent me home with several.  She wanted everyone in the family to get some.  There were still bunches left and another box was found with even more pictures.  Pictures from all the branches of the family have been mixed together, Clark, Boyd, Crow & Keeling.  So many of them were not marked on and there is nobody left to ask or who knows who some of them are.

I have brought bunches home to scan and return from the photos that other family members have picked out.  I have so many left to do.  It is going to take awhile to get the job done.  I am trying to remember to name the photo the way it is labeled on the back.  I think I missed a few that I have already returned.

Here are a few of my favorite family photos that I have scanned so far.......

My mother and her little brother.

 

Clark

Great Grandfather, Grandfather as boy and Great Grandmother.

 

Crow

Great Grandfather and Grandmother

Keelings

Not sure who is all in this one.  I forgot to name it from the writing on the back!

Boyds

This picture is marked "group photo taken in Joplin MO 1902".

I wish I know who all was in this one.  I know the heavy set lady is my Great Grandmother's sister.  She was reported to have thyroid problems. 

 

Here is the oldest known family member photo that I have.  It is my Great Great Grandfather Clark and his wife my Great Great Grandmother.  He was born in 1856 in White Co. TN.

They both died in 1935 and are buried just a few block from the family land in Rose Hill Memorial Park. 

 

 

I love this one of my Great Grandfather Clark.  He is listed as self employed as a jitney driver in Tulsa, OK on his WWI draft card.

The draft card also stated that he lived on Admiral Blvd.  If this photo was taken on Admiral Blvd then it was a dirt road back then.  I wish there was a date written on the back.  Later in life he was a bus driver in Tulsa.  Here is a photo of him holding my mother as an infant in his bus driver uniform.

 

My family has been on the land where Grams passed away last week for 100 years.  The Wyandotte Indian land in North East OK was traded for a very large section in Tulsa OK.  The lady that owned the Tulsa land was also a Wyandotte. My uncle told me this past week that my great grandfather sold off lots for houses to be built on and that he helped build some of them.  That was new info for me.  I didn't realize that there was so much land that they owned. 

 

There are also some fabulous old photos of Tulsa in the family photo collection.  Here are a few of my favorites from them.

 

Tulsa, OK 1923

 

Here are two shots of the Arkansas River in the West Tulsa area.  No date listed on these but they seem very old and are in rough condition. 

 

Here is one last photo I will share with you.  It was taken at Fort Sill Oklahoma.  It is a group of men that are headed off to WWII.  My grandfather is the first fully visible man on the left in the front row.  His hands are in his pockets and I love his white shoes.

My family says that he was stationed in France near the front lines and he repaired weapons.  My uncle says he never spoke of the war.  After he returned he took all of the guns the family owned and gave them to his cousin Jim Davis.  The Jim Davis of the gun museum in Claremore, OK.  I need to research and find out how Jim Davis is related...... more to do!