Table of
Contents
James Marion Reynolds
Richard DeKalb
Reynolds
Joseph Pinkney Reynolds b. Mar 31, 1858, Tennessee, m. (1) abt 1878, Sarah Elizabeth "Bettie" Hardin, b. Mar 26, 1862, Jankson, Mississippi, d. Aug 22, 1895, Cloud Chief, Oklahoma, buried: Cloud Chief Cemetery, m. (2) Jan 8, 1897, in Washita County, Oklahoma, Effie Kliewer, b. Sep 1878, Kansas, (daughter of Peter B. Kliewer and Effie). Joseph died Jul 28, 1910, Sinton, Texas, buried: Sinton, Texas. Children by Sarah Elizabeth "Bettie" Hardin: i. Alma Rena Reynolds b. Aug 26, 1878, Eastland, Texas, m. A. Frank Fink, d. 1956, Altus, Oklahoma, buried: Altus Cemetery. Rena died 1973, buried: Altus Cemetery. ii. Alice Idella "Della" Reynolds b. Apr 13, 1880. iii. Leona Reynolds b. Aug 31, 1883, Eastland, Texas. iv. Lefrenia "Bud" Reynolds b. Mar 26, 1886, Eastland, Texas, m. Nellie J. Lefrenia died 1940, Oklahoma, buried: Alfalfa Cemetery. v. Lewis Pinkney "Pink" Reynolds b. Oct 2, 1888, Eastland, Texas, m. Feb 16, 1908, Mattie Ann, b. Sep 23, 1889, Texas, d. Nov 9, 1968, Oklahoma, buried: Alfalfa Cemetery.Lewis died Jun 23, 1978, Oklahoma, buried: Alfalfa Cemetery. vi. Frank Myrtle "Myrt" Reynolds b. Mar 27, 1892, Greer County, Texas, m. Cardie C. b. 1892, d. 1973, Oklahoma, buried: Alfalfa Cemetery. Frank died 1984, Oklahoma, buried: Alfalfa Cemetery. vii. Elzie Reynolds b. Dec 24, 1893, Navajoe, Oklahoma, m. Ethel Lorene Rinker, b. May 1, 1896, d. Mar 9, 1993, buried: Apache, Oklahoma. Elzie died Mar 15, 1973, Rush Springs, Oklahoma, buried: Mar 17, 1973, Apache, Oklahoma. Children by Effie Kliewer: viii. Claud Reynolds b. Dec 31, 1897, Washita County, Oklahoma, d. May 21, 1905, Carnegie, Oklahoma, buried: Carnegie Cemetery., Sinton, Texas. ix. Grettle Reynolds b. abt 1902. x. Joseph DeKalb Reynolds b. Apr 25, 1904, Alfalfa, Oklahoma, m. Sep 28, 1930, in Gotebo, Oklahoma, Pauline R. Bills, b. Feb 21, 1908, d. Apr 2, 1981, buried: Gotebo Cemetery. Joseph died May 31, 1979, Weatherford, Oklahoma, buried: Gotebo Cemetery.
Dr. Joseph Pinkney Reynolds' grave in
Sinton, Texas
and Sarah Elizabeth "Bettie" Hardin's in Cloud Chief,
Oklahoma
Rena Reynolds Fink Interview, September 23, 1937
I was nearly ten years old when my father decided he would seek a new country to practice medicine. Accordingly, he loaded Mother and us children into a covered wagon with his sheep skin medicine bags, bedding, and a camping outfit, and headed into the unknown. I cannot remember just why we paused it Frazier, just west of where Altus, Oklahoma is now. We set up housekeeping in a one-room house with a shed room on the side, and stayed in that house until the great flood of 1892 washed it away, and then we moved to Navajoe where Father was to take up practice with his brother who had located nearer the mountains and was more fortunate as to location if not in practice. Everything had to be freighted from Vernon and as there were only three stores in the place I was often asked to stay with the wives of the merchants while the men went to Vernon for supplies.
We had a one-room schoolhouse where all community gatherings took place, preaching, debates, news, and gatherings of all kinds.
At first, father always rode horseback and often got caught in high water and was in danger. Once he was caught in the river. His saddlebags floated off. He got off the horse to swim after them and he thought his horse was drowned, but the horse got out and some men who lived near the river saw the horse without his rider and came down and helped to rescue Dad. All Dad’s medicine was spoiled and the labels were all washed off the bottles and he had to come back home before he could prescribe any medicines although he went on to see his patient before he came home.
Helping new babies onto the world and treating fevers and smallpox were about all Father had to do, but doing these kept him pretty busy. He sometimes would have to stay two or three days waiting for the baby to arrive after he was called, for it was too far from home to come home and go back. Everyone lived in one room, mostly in the ground, and all the family would be in that one room together with the dog and cat and sometimes a sick pig or a bunch of little chickens. Father got only $10.00 for a baby no matter how far he had to go or how long he had to stay. I remember very well the first twins he ever reported. He was gone three days and nights and lost both babies but saved the mother. After he beggar to go in a buggy I always got his horses hitched to the buggy while he got his medicine case filled when the call would come. Usually the one who came for the doctor would dash up on a horse, bareback, for he was scared or the doctor would not be called. For such things as measles or mange and such every day things, the doctor was never called unless complications set in and the family got scared. I went to school in a one-room schoolhouse at Navajoe too. We studied McGuffey’s Readers, Blue Back Speller, Ray’s Arithmetic, and Harvey’s grammar. We learned to write by a copy being hung on the board once a day by the teacher or one of the older scholars who could write well. We had double desks and two or three sat in a seat. All the grades were in one room.
Everyone took his or her dinner and school took up at eight and turned out when it began to get dark. The sun was usually down when we got home. We had ladies for teachers mostly and they were sure good ones too.
Father paid $150.00 for a sewing machine for Mother. The machine was a Singer and then we had a lot of our close neighbors come to our house to learn to sew. We put about seven yards into a dress and five yards into a pinafore and yards and yards of home made lace. My wedding dress was made out of cream cashmere and my hat was made from the same material. I trimmed them in cream colored lace and ribbon. In Navajoe we had a two-story wood frame house and a dugout to cook and eat in.
I met Mr. Fink at a dance and we loved each other at once, but went together three years before we married. We were married at prayer meeting by the Justice of the Peace in Cloud Chief, which was the county seat of Washita County then. Judge Hatchet was his name. There were no preachers to be had except on regular days when they were supposed to come and preach, and when got ready to be married we did not want to wait.
We had lots of play parties and picnics as well as dancing for our social activities.
Once I had a cousin who had a birthday and wanted to celebrate it, so she gave a continuous dance for two days and nights, so that couples from a hundred miles away could come as well as the ones forty or fifty miles away. Dancing went on all the days and nights and you could eat whenever you wanted to. The food was furnished by the host, but the visitors paid the fiddlers, usually 25 cents for a set. The boys were always glad to do the paying. We hardly ever had over two pieces, a fiddle and banjo or guitar. It was nothing to go eighty miles to a dance. A couple of boys would hitch their saddle horses to a wagon, set in two or three spring seats, get all the girls and boys who could pile in, and away we would go, and we really did not come home until morning sure enough.
We made our dresses out of challis, lawn, chambray, and calico for summer. For winter our dresses were of broadcloth, cashmere or wool. My wedding dress had an eleven gored skirt. Every girl’s Hope Box contained quilts, sheets, pillow cases, feather pillows and, if she was lucky, a feather bed and towels.
We did not have fancy dishes or cooking utensils, but every girl knew how to cook. We did not know what baking powder was, but make our cakes from baking soda and cream or tarter. We made pound cakes, orange and lemon cakes, and spice and fruit cakes. I had never heard of vanilla. When we had a dance the house where we had it was more often than not one-room and every stick of furniture was moved out until after the dance was over.
From the Indian-Pioneer Papers:
In 1936, the [Oklahoma Historical] society teamed with the history department at the University of Oklahoma to get a Works Progress Administration (WPA) writers' project grant for an interview program. The project employed more than 100 writers scattered across the state, with headquarters in Muskogee, where Grant Foreman served as project director. Asked to "call upon early settlers and (record) the story of the migration to Oklahoma and their early life here," the writers conducted more than 11,000 interviews, edited the accounts into written form, and sent them to the project director who completed the editorial process and had them typed into more than 45,000 pages. When assembled, the Indian-Pioneer Papers consisted of 112 volumes, with one set at the university, the other at the society. There are only two complete bound sets of originals.
Elzie Reynolds and son, Elzie Denton "LD" Reynolds