There were many arguments and discussions, mostly for political purposes, as to whether Oklahoma should be an Indian state, two states, or one state which combined both territories. 

Finally, in 1907, Oklahoma became the forty-sixth state. We were still living at 302 North Frisco and I was seven years old. I am sorry to say that I remember very little of this event but, at seven, I probably had the more important things that little girls think about on my mind.

The plugging of the gas well on our property left Dad somewhat discouraged and, after selling some of the lots on North Frisco, he traded the remaining lots for a one-hundred sixty acre farm about six miles from Bristow. This was in the spring of 1908. Dad went ahead, moving furniture and planting a large field of cotton. 

The family then moved, my father to the farm and Mother, my sister and I to a room in Bristow so that we could finish the school term in Bristow. When the term was over, we also went to the farm. In those days, the Fourth of July was a big event. We used to pack our lunches and travel the six miles into Bristow for the celebration along with the other families.

Later that month my brother Harry, then twenty-three years old, came home to the farm. He had been working in Kiefer building wooden oil derricks and had fallen, injuring his heart, and had come home to recuperate. My dad had bought six head of cattle and of course we had Old Bill and Shorty, a bay horse that was a pacer. 

Harry would use Shorty when he was driving the buggy. One day, when Mother, Princess, and I were in the house and Harry and Dad were in the barn, we had one of those heavy rain and hail storms that come up so quickly. The men had to stay in the barn and we had to stay in the house until the storm was over. After the storm had passed, they discovered that the cattle had all been standing near the fence and that lightning had killed all six of them.

The Negroes lived in a small house on our farm not far from the main house during the cotton planting and picking seasons. They were to come the next day to pick the cotton, but the hail had beaten it into the ground and it was a total loss. Shortly after this Harry came down with typhoid fever. I woke up one night and noticed that there was no one upstairs. 

I went down stairs to find my father working with my brother in the kitchen. I could hear Harry saying, " I don't want to die". To this day I can hear him saying that in my mind. He was only bedfast for a few days before dying, less than a month after his twenty-third birthday. Harry was taken to Tulsa for burial. 

He had been in the Elks Lodge and they had asked to take part in the funeral. Dad did not know that the Elks were going to place Harry in their own lot at Oaklawn and, when he found out, he wouldn't do anything to upset their plans. Later, however, he had Harry and other family members that had been buried at the old cemetery at Frisco and Second, moved to the family plot in Oaklawn.

Harry had been engaged to one of the daughters of the Stevenson family who owned the ice plant. She came to our house many times after Harry's death-- Mother always laid a place for her at the table just in case. She came to see us even after she later married. Then to make matters worse, when we went back to the farm, I came down with typhoid fever and was sick for six weeks. 

I was delirious for two of the six weeks. I can remember waking up in the night and seeing Dad sitting there by my bed reading. There was a kerosene lamp on the desk part of the secretary and the other side had a rounded glass front covering the book shelves. I lay there for what seemed like a very long time and finally asked him why he was there and why I was in the downstairs bed. 

He was so pleased when I talked. The fever had broken and he could tell that I was myself once more. In comparing my illness to Harry's, he must have been in a much weaker condition due to his injury just before he developed the fever, whereas I was young and could throw it off better.

Dad traded the 160 acre farm near Bristow to George Bullette for property at 602 North Detroit and at 213 East Fairview. Dad paid fifteen hundred dollars for another farm near Stroud and later he traded it for a house in the 200 block on South Lansing. Mother, my sister Princess, and I moved into this house and Princess and I started to school in the latter part of September. 

As it turned out, the wrong Negro had signed the deed for the Stroud farm and Dad was out the fifteen hundred