Amanuensis Monday Letter of Ray Whitson to Little Sister Third post

We left off with Ray telling Mary The dad married....
Page 5
Mother they had to cross over the south Canadian River.  They attempted to cross just below the Fresco RR Bridge.  The bridge had been washed out earlier.
In crossing one of the horses drowned the other horse in a deep pot hole.  Dad cut the horses loose, lost nearly everything.
Mother had to strip down to her red flannels, "it was in the winter".
If the men working on the bridge had not come

Page 6  to their rescue, mother might have drowned.  The river was near flood stage.
My memories of him.

Cotton Cake

I was the fourth child.  At my first recollections as I look back dad was a kind family man, and was until his ordeal with cancer.  On the ranch he took me (only 4 or 5 years of age) with him.  Sometimes on the saddle with him, sometimes in a wagon loaded with cotton seed cake.  They would pour the cake out the back of the wagon onto the ground.....
see you all next Monday Feb 7th. 
This Popular Science in 1894 explains about Cotton Cake and Cotton Seed. Click here to read.

Amanuensis Monday Letter of Ray Whitson to Little Sister second installment

Harry O Whitson

We left off with Ray telling Mary that his father didn't know the tarp was coming off the quail until the game...







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warden passed by and looking back saw it and almost fainted.  "I would think".  Dad shipped them back fast and to Guthrie, Okla.
One time at Fay, he shipped two truck loads and the deputy tried to arrest him; Dad told him to come and take his guns, he wore pistols at that time.  By the was the deputy was a man by the name of Boyd. Later became Lester Morse's father in law, your cousin dad's , married a Morse.  Boyd never liked Dad after that.
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Historical thought.
Jessie James married a Whitson, "his only wife" in Missouri.
So by shirttail relation we are related to him.
After he met mother he settled down and became foreman of the Davidson ranch, just out of Arnett Okla.  There were over 350,000 acres in the ranch.  Part of it was government land.  Today over half of it is a game reserve.
The day Dad married...to be continued Monday Jan 31.

I researched the Davidson Ranch on page 43 of Notes from Ellis and Cimarron Counties
it says part of the land was 12 miles southeast of Arnett.

Amanuensis Monday Letter of Ray Whitson to Little Sister

My mom and her twin sister.

My mother was the baker's dozen in her family. She was a twin.  Her 5 older brothers left home to join the service when she was still little and never came back to Oklahoma.  When she was in her 60's she began to reach out and search for her brothers.  She never knew her dad Harry O. Whitson and hoped they would help her know about him.
It was a good thing, because they were all gone with in 5 years of her calling or visiting with them.  I will always be grateful, because their knowledge would have been lost.  This letter is 14 pages long, I will do just two pages at a time so the reader's eyes won't glaze over.  Which means, you will have to come back Monday the 24th to see more of the story.  : )


The Letter from Ray Whitson to Mary Langley
Page 1
This is a few things that I remember about our dad.
He was born in Terre Houte Ind. Had five brothers, (to my knowledge he never mentioned any sisters) [this was added to the side in his handwriting... but one]
They scattered going to Missouri, Luisianna, Texas, and so on.  Uncle Lute and his sister settled in Custer Okla., just south of Fay about 40 miles by the Frisco RR.
Page 2
Most of the boys served in the Spanish American War.
Dad was a "Sooner" He cowboyed a lot. For a while he ran a 'quail route'.  He would furnish the shells and pay them about 75 cents a dozen.  One time while going over the route he had a large wagon load of quail, the tarp that covered them had come loose and the quail could be seen.  Dad did not know it until a game.....to be continued