Nancy Bellzona's Picture Book
The Collins - Adah Gertrude Jones Wadley

Picture: Adah Gertrude Jones Wadley, daughter of Bellzona.

There was a boy with his gun on a man who was coming at him with a knife. He was a large man, Joe McCuine. He was drunk and was mad at the boy. The boy was crying and telling Mr. McCuine he didn't want to kill him, but if he came at him with the knife he would shoot him. McCuine kept coming. Someone slipped behind him, Joe McCuine, and caught him by the arms. Someone else came and took the boy away. The boy's family left not long after and went to Canada.

We lived on our homestead until we proved it up *. While living there, trying to farm, with Dan working too in town, driving the seven and one half miles daily, in good and bad weather when he stayed in town because he couldn't get home, I really knew what one had to do when you are alone. I was never afraid.

We found our horses were getting locoed. We went over the pasture and found lots of the weed growing. I took a sack and dug it out, day by day, until it was all gone.

FUN TIMES

We had fun though, at times. We had several persons in the neighborhood who played instruments. Uncle Bill Collins was a teacher of music. He formed an orchestra. He played anything but was the master of violin. Dan would be on the violin and guitar, Uncle John Collins on violin and organ, Bill Martin on guitar, Clarence McGowen on guitar and bones. There was someone on mandolin and I can't remember their name. I played the guitar and the mandolin. We really enjoyed playing and we practiced every week at my uncle's who lived just across the road from us. We played for literacy at the school house when we had a program at Happy School, and wherever we were wanted. A lot of the time, the neighbors would gather in at my uncle's house in the evening to hear us play.

There were many things to be done in those days with only your hands to do them. It was not easy, but we enjoyed being alive and being able to work.

After we had proved up we moved into town, Tyrone. Dan his father, G.T. Wadley and his brother E.H. Wadley bought a general merchandise store from Cowden. Later, we sold out and went to college at Stillwater, Oklahoma. When we came home Dan worked at the railroad depot. For a while we both were learning telegraphy.

I taught telegraphy to Neil Johnson who held several jobs at a number of places. I also taught Ed Pankratz who was Guymond's Western Union man for a time. T taught Rex Smith of Texhoma and he went on to West Point in 1912.

My husband started a grain business with Andy Hughes at Tyrone. Dan was next with Light Milling and Grain at Liberal Kansas. He next went to Light Riffe grain of Texhoma. He built the first concrete grain elevator there. He was mayor of Texhoma for several years. He sold out there and built an elevator at Kerrick, Texas and at Boise City, while he was working for the Rock Island Railroad too. We lived also at Liberal, Kansas where he was freight depot agent there. We then left Texhoma. We had lived in Texahoma from 1918 to 1931. At Kerrick, Texas Dan was agent for the Santa Fe there. He shipped grain to all over the United States and across the water.

SANDBOWL DAYS

We went through awful times during the sand bowl days. The big rolling cloud of sand would come in. You could look up and out of a bright sunshiny day you could see a cloud coming so big and black and red.

*    "proved it up"  is a term used to mean they had met all the requirements made by the government for  things the settlers must do to own the land.

  The settlers' original proving-up was followed by years of hard labor, sacrifice, resourcefulness, courage, vision, determination and a high degree of pluck and perseverance in the face of reverses and failure. On top of that, consider the very early pioneers who had to build their communities from scratch. There were no roads, no bridges, no wells, no markets, no merchants, no stores, no schools, no churches, no hospitals, no post office, no community consciousness and no local government.