Day 7: Going to the ole' Payne Homestead and Dad's Formative Years in College!

• At 4:30 Dad threw pillows at me and hollered " I am running with energy!!! Lets go"

• Pulled out at 5:30am and just passing into Oklahoma we passed the WinStar Casino.

• The sunrise was beautiful, and we pulled off with Starbucks, the first we had seen the entire trip! The Arbuckle Incline was breathtaking.

• Were running up I-35 and saw some ridiculus Jesus Saves signs, like "Going to Hell? Let us help!". So decided their needs  to be a billboard that shows Jesus fixing an all American car engine with the catch phrase "made by Jesus!". We thought this would be pretty funny!

• Gave a salute to Norman, home of the Sooners for Rainee!

• Dad was amazed at how much Oklahoma grew in the past forty years!

• Stopped for some Grub at the Cherokee Restaurant! Best Grits EVER!!!!!! Dad and I sat talking about Matrix reprints and EFT :-)

• Dad was born in Watonga with Barbara and Don lived here till 1949. Watonga was looking really healthy, new buildings and thriving!

• The Payne's had lived in and around Watonga since before Oklahoma was a State. Great Grandma Stella remembers riding on the back of a covered wagon during the Oklahoma Cherokee Land rush.  Dads Great Grand Dad Robert Walter Payne Home Steaded the 160 acres where Dads Grand Dad Payne was born along with his four other brothers and three sisters.

This is the HomeStead!!! Well this and about 12 square miles! All the way down to the river! Grand Dad Payne farmed this by horse drawn farm implements and the assistance of many farm hands.  Grand Dad Payne and his three oldest brothers were over seers (middle management) for the farm hands and wore pistols on their hips for protection.  Needed in that period of time... around early 1920's.

To the R. of that small white building  a 10'x12' bunkhouse was located that Smitty and Willa lived in! Dad and Barbara were delivered by Dr. Curtland in this bunk house.  Barbara was ticked off when Dad came as she lost her sleeping place between Smitty and Willa.

R. of the house where a small corral is now, was where the original house was of Stella and Walter Payne.(Great Grandparents)

The location of the barn is accurate, but when Dad was born it was a REAL barn and a whole lot larger!  It housed up to 120 field hands during the growing season.  Took a lot of folks to work a huge piece of land using horses.  Great Gran Ma ran a commissary for the field hands and who ever else might need food.  The saying was... Mrs. Payne will feed you if you are hungry and broke.

• Great Grand Dad, Robert Walter Payne, farmed an operation of about 12 square miles outside of Watonga. Including Cattle and Farming.

• Back during the the crash of the stock market and commidites market in the 1920's Great Grand Dad lost his shirt in the commodities market and took bankruptcy.  Well when they inventoried the place for the court case for the insurance company out of Kansas City he was in debt to... a count of the cattle had to be taken.   Well an insurance man from KC came out to do it.   Well times were tough and they had to slaughter some of the cattle for food. So there was this  hill and the Five brothers looped the cattle around the hill until the insurance feller had gotten the right count!!!  Several head were counted twice as this KC fellow couldn't tell one cow from another=:)

• Only Grandpa, and Doc left Watonga  the other boys stayed on with Great Grand Dad on the original farm place.  They went to Boise City to strike out on their own!

• Grandpa met Grandma at a country dance at an old school house where dances were held but  we couldn't find that one. They were both about 20 years old, wish I could been a fly on the wall during that dance!

• Smitty and Willa, or Aunt Bill, got married in their 20's with about twelve dollars in their pocket.

• Bessie, Grand Ma's mother, was married twice. Her first husband died quite young from dust pneumonia, she had Grandma, Toots, and Art with her first husband. Baxter was his name and that is where the red hair in the family came from!

• Toots married Harold and lived across the street from Grandma and Grandpa in Alva. 

• My Great Grandmother on Smitty's side was named Stella Wilson and Walter Robert Payne was great grand dad.

• Dad and Barbara were born in a bunk house, about 12' by 10' on a hill just outside the Payne house.

• The Payne house was about where the corral is now. 

• Great Grand Dad and Stella had five boys: Smitty, Doc(Ellis), Homer, Henry, and Little Jack, and three girls: Hazel, Emma, and Bee.

• Emma was tall and Hazel and Bee were built more like Grandma and Grandpa. 

• The story goes that when WWII hit the three girls went to Oklahoma City to work as Secretary's to help the family with money. Apparently Hazel preferred to spend her money on new "under garments" and Bee was more interested in the latest fashions so under garments that didn't show could be filled with holes=:)

• Just up the bend across from the old Payne farm was the home of Kenneth and Dorothy Payne. Kenneth was one of the sons of Henry! Hesitantly we knocks on the closed up house and this beautiful women answered the door. Dorothy.

• She told us about her husband, who had passed abut four years ago, how he loved to fly airplanes. He was a crop duster for over thirty years.  And paid for his farm land and their house built in 1975 for his love. Now Dorothy's sisters all went to college but she got married right out of high school. She grew up ten miles from her current home.

• Asking her about Smitty and Willa she chuckled about Smitty: "He just would just blow and go!", She said. Her face softened instantly upon mention of Grandma. "All I can say is Aunt Bill was a fine, fine person." 

• She laughs about how the two of them were, "Oh Aunt Bill would just say, 'Oh Smith!'". Back in the car I learned it was more like, "God Damn it Smith what did you do!!

• Toots was Aunt Bill's sister and they were just like two peas in a pod. Grandma was also really close to her mother Bessie, sending letters back and forth to each other. Grandma also had a brother from Bessie's first marriage Art. 

• Toots and Harold had a son who was Carl. The same carl who threw a firecracker under Dad's horse and bucked him off onto concrete!

• We drove around a bit more before leaving Watonga. We saw where Homer, Henry and Little Jack lived on the ole' homestead. Then up north we went toward Alva, OK.
• Heading out of Watonga we passed the American Gypsum Factory. GrandDad worked to making drywall there in order to make ends meet. GrandDad said it was hard work. That means a lot coming from Grandpa!

• Alva was established in 1893

• Heading into town I saw the hanger Dad painted airplanes in one summer and also learned that Alva also had a Japanese internment camp just outside of town.

• Heading into Alva the first place Dad showed me was the hill he walked down toward the North Western and the spud nut shop that Grand Dad owned, along with the laundry mat just adjacent. Apparently there was this little dog that would follow dad every morning to work making donuts.

Spudnuts on the Left, Laundry on the Right

• This was also the same intersection that Dad crashed a scooter on trying to get to graduation on time in the evening! So Dad limped across the stage.

The Street Dad walked down every morning in college!

• Don, Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa lived off 1520 Davis Street.  Across the street was Toots and Harold.

Where Dad Lived with the GrandPa, GrandMa, and Don!

Dad's room was on the left, GrandMa and GrandPa on the right and Don on the far end of the house. 

• Next to Toots and Harold the family built a home for Harold's Mom, Mrs. Wilson. The building of the house was a major strain on the family because it was done over the weekends, sounds a touch familiar:-)

Where Toots and Harold Lived

• While taking pictures the husband and wife who lived their came out to investigate. Dad told them our story and we stood out of the rain on the front porch and we talked. They remembered Harold, Toots and Mrs. Wilson. They had lived in the house since the mid 1970's. He owned the local grocery store, and she worked at the local middle school. We talked about how great the area was doing. They said it was all about the oil in the area. Told use that they had even leased the mineral rights under their home, in the middle of the city!!! They were horizontal drilling under the town!

• Early every morning at the Spudnut shop Dad's history teaching would come in. A little bird of a thing drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette. Dad said she could really make history come alive, and she knew all of the really interesting stories behind the events!!

The Science Building!

• The first place we headed to was the science building!!! Dad spent almost all of his time in that one building! We went in, walked around and even saw the chemistry classroom. 

• The chem class was taught by Dr. Miter, whom we realized had only retires about three years earlier.

• We looked at the building that housed the old library with the dark oak shelves and Dad remembered so romantically.

• Dad told a funny story about the first education class he ever took. I did not know but Dad really wanted to be a teacher at first. But when he heard the "Mickey Mouse Way they talked about education compared to his other science courses he turned about and finished his last two degrees in biology and chemistry in two years!!!! 

• Next we headed over to look at the Middle School that Don spent three years in!

• Our next stop was the home of the Alva "Gold Bugs!" This is were dad spent his senior year in high school and graduated from. This is also were he had to work realllly hard to make the football team. He played the left guard and were a coin toss away from winning the Championship game that year because of a three way tie. 

• On our way out of town we saw where the old drive in was and the Sonic!!!
• He would go see a movie and then get a burger at the Sonic when it was over, in the case of Gone with the wind it could even be as late as 2am!
• Their Strawberry Milkshakes are still wonderful!!!!

At the Sonic!

• Back on the road we went making one last stop before heading to Guyman to get some sleep! A surprisingly interesting "Hysterical Marker!"

Coronado Passed through the area