UlaWestLetter

Ula West Reminisces

Grace Zona (Hall) Austin
Written by Ula Austin West, 1997

This webpage belongs to John and Sharlee Farrell

I am looking at a picture I have of the Robert Hall family (circa 1903). Back in those days you had to hold that pose for a few minutes or the picture would be blurred. At any rate everyone was very sober and standing or sitting very still, even the family dog. Sitting by the dog is sweet Aunt Hazel the youngest girl in the picture, in front on the left side of picture. Next to her was the eldest daughter Aunt Ollie, small and dainty in a shiny rocking chair. Grandpa Robert Hall was sitting next to her with his violin across his chest and the bow in his right hand-ready to draw it across the stings. Grandma Elizabeth was sitting by Grandpa, her hand touching Uncle Cooper her little boy. Uncle Newt (Newton) holding his black hat on his knee seated next to his mother. Standing on the left side of the picture is our Mamma Grace and she is holding her doll and in her face, sober as the other faces, I can see Donna, Dorothy, Ula (myself) and Helen. Her sister Mahala (Haley), five years older, stands in the middle, she was fifteen years old or thereabout and a little shy too. Uncle William (Will) just older than Mama stands there - his face holding back the mischief he was noted for. Please take note of the yellow roses that were pinned to each shoulder. A large proud family. This picture was taken before Grandpa built the big house. Pictures taken some years later in front of it shows Mama quite grown up. I have pictures and I will try and get copies for this story.

In a very few short years after the pictures of the family in front of the big house Grandpa left Grandma and was not heard from for a long time. It was a very hurt full period since Grace was very close to her father. She played the organ when he played his violin and she, Ollie and Mahala were the "Lennon Sisters" of their community singing together. In 1991 when I was visiting Oklahoma with Vera and Deon, we stopped at the large Hall home. The Pierson's who live there had just finished a complete remodeling of the house and we took pictures. It is lovely. I had the chance of a life time - I stood at the foot of the open stairway I'd heard about when Mama told us stories of her youth. She had written a poem and put it in her father's vest pocket before he left and she once told me that she searched faces in crowds thereafter, always looking for him. It was heart breaking I'm sure.


photo of the Staircase in the house. taken on Sep 11, 2006 by Sharlee.

You see Grandma Elizabeth was raised north of what was Indian Territory - possibly close to or maybe in Kansas. When very young she married an Indian boy. Aunt Mahala's children told me that she told them that Grandma rode to her wedding behind her groom on his pony. His name was Joe Brown. Grandma and Joe had a little daughter whom they named Ellen and were expecting another child when Joe died. The baby was another girl whom Grandma named Joanna- our Aunt Annie who married George May and was the mother of one of my favorite cousins "Carl May." Carl was so talented in many ways. Grandma was to marry again and this husband was Charles Farrell (James Harvey Ferrel) and I don't remember hearing much about him except they had a son John (Johnathan Asbury Farrell) who was very young when Charles (James) fell ill with one of the raging diseases that plagued the Indian Territory at this time. Neighbors came to help care for the sick and sit with them, there were no Doctors so they used primitive remedies.

A young man named Robert Hall and his brother Ben left their home in Illinois and came down to the Indian Territory. They were living in or around Nowata when they learned of Charles Farrell's (James Ferrel) illness so they were among the people who sat up (as they called it) with Charles (James). Grandma's son John (Johnathan) was still very young when Charles (James) died. I don't have any information as to when Robert Hall and Elizabeth Farrell were married. I do know that she was eight or ten years older than he. No one knows who owned the productive farm they lived on. My cousin Samantha and I have talked about it and we both agree that the farm was probably Grandma's. It was considered to be one of the best farms around.

To Elizabeth and Robert were born a large family. I will list them age wise - Newton, Ollie, Mahala, William, Grace, Hazel and Grandma's "change of Life" baby, a boy named Cooper born when she was 50 years old.

Robert and Elizabeth's family were taught to be industrious (Mama's word) and had their chores they were responsible for. Half brother John (Johnathan) and Newt Hall were grown and married but worked at the family farm and were great friends. Milking the cows and caring for the milk and cream separator, making butter and caring for the chickens were the girls duties. Gathering in the crops was a big job. Corn for the hogs was put in the cribs, grain in the graineries and of course every implement was horse drawn (now, I know that about this time some of you are thinking that this sounds like the life a lot of us lived, Right?) Well, this is Mama's story the way she told me. It seems that Mama's parents were strict about every child working - they had horses to care for and buggies and wagons had to be repaired and cared for. A normal busy farm life but in the fall after all these chores were done, Grandpa Robert would have a party (Samantha told that her mom Aunt Mahala called it a Ball) for his family, friends and the present owners of the farm told me that she had been told that the Hall family were very social in their time. The rooms and the large wrap around porch would be prepared as would food of course and Robert had a wooden keg of whiskey in the cellar with hard rock candy floating in it and it was time for the party. Now, don't ask me questions about the hard rock candy in the whiskey keg - I just tell it the way I heard it.

Aunt Mahala had met a very good looking (handsome no less) young man whose name was Walter (Watt) Austin and during their courtship he would drive his pretty team and buggy from Glenoak all shining as could be to see her. Glenoak was possibly nine or ten miles west of the Hall farm. No lights after dark except a coal-oil lantern hanging on the front of the buggy. Walter had a younger brother. This brother showed up at a few of the parties riding a black horse he called Hickey. The brothers name was an "Indian name Sevolia" but Watt and his friends called him "Bose." Watt was a beautiful dancer, he could waltz with a book on his head and never have it slip off. Gracie, as she was called by family and friends, admired him from her stool in front of the organ. His brother Bose she wasn't so sure of. He was tall and lean and had light brown hair with a tendency to form a wave on his forehead. But she thought he might be a little wild. He would stand a side of the doorway and watch the dancers. A little shy until he had a sip or two of that whisky then he would dance - but of course Gracie was more interest in playing the organ with her father playing Songs: "Missouri Waltz, Beautiful Ohio, After the Ball Was Over and square dance tunes".

When they took a break from dancing Gracie and her sisters Ollie and Mahala would sing. Favorites were _ - Sioux Indians - a long song that was a story of pioneers who "Left their dear loved ones, their friends and their home to cross the lone prairie Wyoming to roam" another favorite "If Brother Jack were here, you'd dare not insult Me, Sir if Brother Jack were here" and "Lay My head beneath the Rose". Hardly a party song, eh? Grace and Bose were kinda drawn together - you know That old Magic I reckon. Watt and Mahala laughed at them when he came courting in his old faded buggy and poor old team. But he showed 'em. He painted that buggy, put a new to on it and fattened up his team and he and Gracie were very proud. They wrote cards to each other. I have one card that she wrote and sent to him telling him about a dance that was coming up at High Prairie school house. She had attended school there for a few years. It seems according to stories I hear that there were no formal schools, they had something I've heard called subscription schools, anyway during some of this time Grandpa Hall hired a tutor who stayed with the family and taught the children in one of the rooms upstairs. A cousin told me that some neighborhood children attended too.

Grandpa Hall was a smart man, astute in his real estate business as well as his farming although neither he nor Elizabeth ever attended school. They were self-taught. One of the stories Mama told us always made chills creep up my spine. It was sometime after Grandpa Hall left. Aunt Mahala and Uncle Watt were married and Uncle Newt and his wife Katie lived nearby. Will, Grace, Hazel and young Uncle Cooper were still living at home with Grandma Elizabeth. It was near supper time and Grandma was dishing up food in front of the stove when they heard foot steps on the wrap-around porch. Grandma lifted her head a second and turned toward Will as she said "Open the door, Willie, here is your father". They tried to reconcile, but it didn't work so they had an Auction and divided up everything, sold the farm and Grandma bought a smaller one near by and Grandpa left and Gracie never saw him again.

As I recall she told us that he returned once again, but at that time she and papa were living on a homestead in Eastern Colorado. This time he didn't take his violin when he left. Uncle Newt always kept it. I have a picture of it that aunt Mahala's daughters took of it when they were visiting the Newt Hall family in Texas. Grandma Elizabeth left her sons Will and Cooper for a while when she wanted to be with Aunt Hazel who was expecting a baby. This must have been about 1916 or so. Soldiers were returning from World War 1 in Europe with an illness called influenza or flu. Her sons came down sick with it. Papa was going to Nowata from Glenoak and stopped to see the boys who were sick very sick. This turned into Tuberculosis from which they both died, Uncle Will first. I remember him as a fun person and I have pictures of him. He must have been in his early twenties when he died and never married.

Grandma Elizabeth died when she live in Lenapah, Okla. She was in her early seventies. Oil was found on her farm and she drew a good income in her final years. Uncle Cooper died (I think) in 1922 about a month after Grandma's death. The family was scattered and unknownly let the oil right go to the Mortuary to pay for both the services and as far as I know no one checked it out, but Uncle Newt probably did. He was a bright man and he was in the oil business. We moved to Colo. In 1923 and papa and little brother Jojack passed away and we never went back to Oklahoma. Mama had income for a while from Papa's insurance - enough to pay $1,200 for this farm and she bought a Model A, 1931 Ford car.

Zula had learned to drive several years before as she was now an eighteen year old graduate of Hotchkiss High. When she and Albert decided to get married it was time I learned to drive. Albert gave me my first driving lesson and only one. As matter of fact just before he and Zula left to get married and go on their honeymoon. He told me to get in the drivers seat and I drove him down to Bell Creek and back. On the way down the hill he had me stop the car, turn off the motor, then start the motor and drive on down to the dance hall - turn around - drive part way back up the hill - stop the car once more, stop and start the motor again and continue driving home. I went in to Hawkins agency about 1940 or so - long after Clell and I were married and applied for my first drivers license. Sort of shocked them as they knew I'd been driving all those years. As a family of mother and her five daughters we lived a happy life. Mama canned and preserved lots of food. She put apples, celery, squash and potatoes down in the basement as we had no furnace and the basement stayed very cool all winter. She smoked hams and canned meat. We ate many a meal with as high as six or seven vegetables on the table - for instance we would have green onions, radishes, turnips, sour kraut (she made it), hominy (she made it), pickles of all kinds (dill, sweet, 14 day), beets and pickle-lily as well, and all the familiar vegetables of course.

She taught us to work - went with us to Palisade to pack peaches with us and we never went hungry in our lives. I think she read one novel in her entire life and she didn't hold with me reading all the time ether, but she did read her Bible everyday. All of us girls respected her greatly. She and her love Bose Austin had 21 years together, she was 36 years old when she lost him and she never had another man in her life. She passed away at age 52 yrs., June 14, 1946. Wanda had graduated at Hotchkiss High School in June. Mama had finished her duty. She never learned or even tried to drive her 31 Model A Ford.
Papa passed away July, 25, 1931
Mama passed away June 14, 1946
Jojack passed away May 27, 1927
Wanda passed away Dec. 7, 1987
Zula passed away May 21, 1995

Written by - Ula Austin West.....1997..... (Ula West passed away June 17, 2004)

July 11, 2006, I Sharlee Farrell, re-typed this from the typed copies supplied by Sandra Vanderford.

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Note....The wallpaper on this site is an actual picture of the old Nowata homestead. JWF