My Flint Hill's Daddy

Story ID:	489
Written by:	Gail Lee Martin
Organization:	Kansas Authors Club
Story type:	Family History
Location:	Greenwood County Kansas USA
Year:	1936
Person:	Clarence McGhee

My Flint Hill’s Daddy

My father, Clarence Oliver McGhee, has been gone 33 years, but it seems like only yesterday instead of 70 years ago when I followed along behind him and his faithful, Collie dog, Tag-A-Long. I tried to match his stride but usually ended up running just to catch up. When I was born in 1924, Daddy, as his three daughters called him, was working for the Phillips Petroleum Company. We lived 20 some miles northwest of Eureka in Greenwood County, Kansas.

Our home was a company ‘shotgun’ house on the Agard lease on the high desolate prairie, better known as the Flint Hills. For those not in the know of the early oil industry, shot gun houses were just three rooms in a row, a frontroom then a bedroom in the middle and the kitchen in the back. So if you shot a gun in the front door the bullet would exit the back door.

Daddy’s only sons died at birth, so I tried to be a son for him. In so doing I became his ’tomboy'. I even had a pair of blue denim, bib overalls just like his. I followed him around to his oil wells and carefully watched as he greased the rod-lines so they wouldn’t squeak and squeal.

These rods connected the distant oil wells to the centrally located powerhouse. The noisy engine in the powerhouse always scared me, but Daddy assured me it was safe if I stayed close to him. So I did. Then Daddy would laugh and tell me he didn’t mean glued to his leg. I loved my big, happy Daddy, and when he laughed my day was complete.

Daddy, Tag-A-Long and I chased the wild rabbits called cottontails because of their fluffy white tails. We were a team that worked well together to catch the rabbits in an unusual way, without a gun. Tag-A-Long would roam around in the tall prairie grass until he scared up a rabbit. The frightened bunny would head for the nearest pipe with a rod-line going through it. These pipes were placed under the oil field roads so the rods could move without being smashed into the dirt or mud by vehicle wheels. The power house forced the rods to move slowly back and forth making the pump jacks move up and down to bring oil or ‘black gold’, as it became known, from deep in the ground. In fact the rods were constantly moving and so slow that the rabbits weren’t afraid and so felt safe from the barking dog.

Now it was Daddy and mine’s turn. I would run to one end of the big round pipe about two foot in diameter. Then I wrapped the top of a loose-woven gunny sack around the end of the pipe and held on tight. When Daddy rattled a stick in the other end, the rabbit would take off running away from the noise straight into my sack. Wow! I can still feel that thrill when the rabbit hit the sack and I knew we had him. I even remember one Thanksgiving we had an early snow storm and we went out in the snow to scare up some rabbits. Daddy didn’t like to go rabbit hunting until after the first snow. So we had roast rabbit for dinner instead of our usual roasted hen. I don’t remember anyone complaining.

I would like to take you back to the Flint Hills, there I could show you every place we lived during those early oil boom days. The company moved us several times through my early years. Always in the same area of the Flint Hills, just on different oil leases as the oil drilling and production expanded. There is nothing left but prairie to show where the many houses had been.

But Daddy left his mark! On those lonely grasslands the only trees were Cottonwoods and Willows down in the damp creek bottoms. Daddy would dig up Cottonwood seedlings and replant them around our home for much needed shade. They grew fast if they had plenty of water. He explained that the trees would die away from the moisture in the creek if we didn’t water them. So when he planted each tree, he buried a two-foot length of pipe beside it. One end down by the roots and the other barely sticking up out of the ground. This way we could water the tree where it was needed and not the surrounding ground that dried out almost instantly in the hot summer winds. I was so proud to be able to help Mother carry her wash water down to the pipes for the trees weekly watering. Even if those trees are gone, I can still find the pipes.

Nearby you might find some iris and roses gone wild, leaving memories of both Mother and Daddy. At the site of the company camp where we lived on the Noeler lease, I found the time-worn cement fishpond where my folks had goldfish for several years. I remember Daddy going out to the pond each morning in the winter to break the ice with a large stick he left stuck in the water for that purpose.

In the summer on Sunday afternoons Daddy would drive us over to Big Springs, northwest of Teterville. It was a lovely place to picnic and swim in the cold, cold, spring water. Daddy taught me to swim while Mother showed me how to float on my back. In my mind I can still see my dad looking so tall and slender in his one-piece black swimsuit that buttoned on his shoulder that was the style in the thirties. I expect he would look funny today causing whispers and stares.

A large pipeline about waist high went across the swimming hole, adding to our fun. It was so big we could even walk across the pool on it or jump into the deeper part out in the middle. Daddy would drive our Ford onto the low-water crossing, and we’d help wash the accumulated dust or mud off. What fun, and no one noticed the heat like we do nowadays.

Since we lived so far from town and any church, Daddy talked our neighbors into getting together for a Sunday School. At first they met in different homes for singing, prayers, and Bible study. Someone would read from the Bible--especially from the book of Acts; the writings of Paul and accounts of the church. Later the Noeler school board gave the new Sunday School group called ‘Marysville’ permission to use the school for their Sunday worship. In 1929 Daddy was chosen to teach one of the Sunday School classes and the next year he became superintendent of the fledging church on the prairies.

Daddy’s involvement in the affairs of his church continued throughout his life and he passed them on down to his girls and their families. Daddy lived a full, happy life and left many wonderful memories as a legacy to his girls.