I Remember When Dec.28, 2000 By Les Or Pop-o Vining
When I first lived in Colo. at Ackman, about all there was there a grocery Store that Auggie Wyman owned we lived about a 1/4 mile from there we played along the canyon rolling tires or pushing iron rims down the paths with a tee board down by the base ball field when I caught my hand in the Maytag wringer and it spinning on the knuckles of my right hand till Sylvia got it stopped, and turning summer sets on the bed till I hit the back of my head it bled some Sylvia said it was where our horse in Oklahoma old black Joe bit me on the head. I still have a bad scar there. When they had base ball games and Leon Wyman my age and me would go all around the field yelling I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream and then aug. would give us a ice cream cone.
When the cow went dry and we had no milk, Sylvia mixed condensed milk with water, I was standing on the bench behind the table when she gave it to me I took A BIG SWALLOW and thin squirted milk all over the table. When Sylvia ask what was the matter, I said it's blinky.
When we had moved to the Garwood house, we pulled radishes in an old garden and eat them right there. And a dirt clod fight Ray, Dale and me had Dale got hit in the eye and was screaming I can't see all he had was a little dirt in his eye, but we got in trouble for it, when Sylvia had a tub of water setting on the floor For scrubbing the floor and the guys came in for lunch, after lunch the boys kept hanging around the house and Sylvia wanted them to go back to work so she could get the floor cleaned, so finally Shorty and one other got Sylvia by each arm and set her down in the tub of water, called her an old wet setting hen then ran off to the field to work again. We lived there when I started to school seemed like a long walk probably two or three miles one way up hill both ways. Uncle Eften Hawkins had a farm across from the school.
Oscar and Alfred had worked for Bert Hainny even before we moved from Okla. He had a son Called Buddy and going on chicken steal was popular at that time and Buddy was one of the worst So they got to gather against him and set it up with a farmer to come out at a signal and shoot his shot gun. So they got the chickens to squawking and when he shot the 12 gage they threw slit beans at Buddy he thought he was shoot for sure of course they all thought it was Quite funny. When we lived at Ackman behind Aug.Wyman's Store the draw had become a canyon with a cliff on that side we wanted to go see over the cliff so we started Flossie Ann and me. We ran ahead of Sylvia and flopped down at the edge of the cliff to look over like two kids and it scared Sylvia so we really caught it then Flossie Ann was nick named Susie because when I was young I wasn't able to say her name right so her nick name become Susie.
When Sylvia and dale Married I lived with Oscar for a time then went to Sylvia’s and lived with them. Dale had built a one room log cabin and there was four of us Flossie had been with them before me. We had a trundle bed that we slide under a 3 quarter bed at night. During the day Sylvia would sprinkle water on the floor to keep down the dust because it was a dirt floor. After a few weeks we got a outside toilet built over a hole, before that it was go behind the bushes with catalog paper. Dale bought a black Jersey cow so we could have milk. The cow cost $20.00 and he worked for his Uncle to pay for it. During the time we had that cow she gave us seven heifer caves and one bull we sold her for $8o.00 Also that could go thru any fence in the county. For water we had a spring about 300 yard from and carried water from it as long as it was running when it was dry we hauled water about three miles with 55 gallon drums with a tarp over the top so it didn’t spill out. They were on wooden sled that we pulled with two horses.I walked several mile to school there.
One time we were snowed in and had to walk 6 miles to buy groceries because we had got down to just gravy. When we could walk on the crusted snow we did when we couldn’t Dale would break trail in the snow taking turns with Sylvia and each of us had a load to carry back home Lenora was born while we live there. Also we received a new snow sled for Christmas our first one.
Dale cleared land and built barb wire fence we planted corn for the cow and horses and a large garden. We burned wood for cooking and heat. One day while dale was building fence he killed seven Diamond Back rattle snakes. Our dog got a lot of Porcine Quills while we lived there. When the land we were on opened for homestead filing we filed and another man filed that had the same Lawyer and paid him to hold our filing papers and his name was Tom Pender. So we had to move and Tom paid us $50.00 for all the improvements that we had made. It really made us mad. But nothing we could do about it.
The hill that we haul water out of the canyon was steep and one time later we were in a model truck going up that hill and we were low on gas that was when the gas tank was in front of the windshield and the truck died so we turned the truck around and backed up the hill there was no fuel pumps on those old trucks so the gas was gravity fed. We moved to a farm we rented four miles southwest of Dove Creek Co. That is where #2 Minnie was born the house was a two story and the bottom was made with logs vertical side by side the top story was boards. When Minnie was born Sylvia had a doctor and Minnie didn’t breath so while the doctor worked Sylvia Dale’s mother took Minnie in another room and prayed worked her arms and legs and she started breathing. The Doctor couldn't hardly believe that. Minnie had trouble with milk so we had to buy a goat so she could have the small curds of milk in her stomach. There was a lot of snakes there also.
We were still farming with horses we purchased a crippled mule there to help with the farming there. There was a well there it was deep and a narrow bucket with a check valve in the bottom of it. One day when I was drawing water with the windless I slipped and the crank came back around and hit me in the left eye brow. I had a lot of scrapes and bruises while we lived there. I caught a chipmunk while we lived there it bit me on the knuckle an I had a hard time slinging it off of my hand. It was Flossie's first year of school and some times she didn't want to carry her lunch bucket and set it down in the snow "I had to go back and get it. It was four miles to school there "S(9chool9o[o)"Our cockatiel was making some extra letters for me.
More later Gail.
(Lester was one of my Vining cousins, who took the time to help with our family history. His parents were killed in a car/train wreck when he was a child)