STORIES:

1.  Cleve O'Dell tells about how he met Wensel Krebbs.  "We met at a dance in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.  I was with a friend and I told him that I was going to marry that girl over there (Wensel).  My friend said, 'Short, you can't marry that girl, she's an Indian'".  And dad said to his friend:  "Hell, what do you think we are?"

Newspaper Story, undated:

2.  Robbing Indians: 

"James Hanson, age 20, (Cleve O'Dell's cousin) living at Elmore (7 miles south of Antioch), Indian Territory married Dora Howell, age 17, living at Elmore, Indian Territory, September 18, 1905." (Pickens County, Indian Territory, which is now Carter County, Oklahoma. The marriage record is now located in the Carter County Clerk's office at Ardmore, Oklahoma, Marriage Book I, page 397.)

"The case of Jim Hanson tried Tuesday and Wednesday for robbing two Choctaw Indians named Bull a short time ago, resulted in a hung jury. From the best we could learn the jury seemed to be unanimously of the opinion that the defendant was guilty, but under Oklahoma law where two or more persons committ a robbery together, the penalty is a life sentence. On account of the extreme penalty the jury agreed to render no virdict. Indicted jointly with Hanson were Jones and Dunn." (From an old Paul's Valley, Oklahoma newspaper, 5 March 1908. NOTE FROM RALPH TERRY: I am not sure if this is the Jim Hanson, son of John A. Hanson, but because of the time and place, it is possible.)

1920 Imperial County, California census: James HANSON, 33, Texas; Dora HANSON, wife, 29, Texas; Etta HANSON, daughter, 17, Oklahoma; Orvil (sic - Arvil is correct) HANSON, son, 8, Oklahoma; Alma HANSON, daughter, 11 month wehs, California; Elizabeth HOWELL, mother-in-law, 76, Alabama (This was Cleve O'Dell's grandmother); Charles J. HOWELL; brother-in-law, 39, Texas; Lauren HOWELL, (wife of Charles HOWELL), 34, Tennessee.

Additional information about the James and Dora Hanson family is from Kathryn Tabor Scheetz, KATHYSCHEETZ@aol.com, 2005.

3  Chilocco Indian School  

Grandad Krebbs (Milton) was forced to attend the Indian school at Chilocco, Oklahoma.  Among other things, he was taught carpentry.  He was always building things for Grannie Krebbs (Daisy), and he did a lot of construction for others (including Cleve and Wensel O'Dell).  

However, Grandad wasn't happy at Chilocco.  He ran away from the school 3 times.  This would have been before 1900 or so.  Roads were sparse, and horse and buggy and wagons were only means of transportation in Indian Territory.  Grandad Krebbs probably followed the Arkansas River home, we speculate.  The river is only a few miles north of Chilocco and he could have followed it down to Short Mountain, a prominent landmark on the river, and just a few miles from Cowlington, where the Krebbs family was located at that time.  Google says the distance TODAY from Cowlington to Chilocco  is 220 miles by road.  Grandad never talked about the school that I heard.  All this information comes from Grannie Krebbs who would tell us kids stories about the old days.

4.  From my notebooks dated July 20, 1980

in a conversation with Uncle Tandy Krebbs about his mother Hattie's  side of the family, the Lowerys.

Hattie mentioned Louisiana a lot according to Uncle Tandy. Said that they may have worked down here or have lived down there for a while.  

She mentioned a brother Richard Lowery who lived in Paris, Arkansas.  He raised a big family there on a big plantation.  He was married 3 times.  He came to Frank Lowery's funeral according to Uncle Tandy.  Frank Lowery lived in the Cowlington area and married a woman named  (Winnie) Hill.  They had one boy Everett who died young.

Hayes was another brother of Hattie's.  He never married and lived in the Henrietta area. 

Hattie had several sisters, 3 that he could recall.  One sister married a Jim Collins, who had a brother Walter Collins.  It might have been Walter that she married, Tandy couldn't quite remember.  They had 3 or 4 boys and girls each. They lived in the Collinsille area near Valliant, Ok.

Henrietta was another sister that lived there, she married a Williams.  She had a daughter that was messing around with a married man and the man's wife shot her and she was paralyzed and used a wheelchair.  There was one other sister that Tandy recalled, but couldn't remember her name or where she lived.

Hattie used to tell Uncle Tandy that the Lowerys were from Tennessee and they were all scared to come to Arkansas and Indian Territory, because they were afraid of the Indians.  And of course, Hattie married Peter Brooks Krebbs, a Choctaw Indian.  

5.  From my notes dated July 13, 1980: 

Newspaper article: "Choctaw Indian Law:  If a white man married a Choctaw woman, he had to have 10 witnesses sign a petition stating that they knew the man, and that he was a reputable man. "   Smart.

6.  My notes from July 11, 1980: 

John Brown shot and killed Bill Krebbs at Alderson, Indian territory on the 7th.  The dead man was a son of the late Judge Krebbs who died here last fall.  On the same day, in the same neighborhood, Jack Hogan shot and killed a negro named Jim Harris.  Both murderers are at large.

7.  Our Piano. 

Beverly remembers picking cotton on Sundays to buy our piano. We would load up Sunday morning early and go out and pick til noon or so.     Moma said that all the kids picked cotton for Daddy to buy the second hand piano from Aunt Flossie for $100.  Aunt Flossie had bought it from their neighbor behind them, but Beverly couldn't remember their names.  I remember when we picked it up.  Daddy, Uncle Runt, and several other men loaded it up in the back of a pickup, and a couple of the men stood in the back of the pickup holding it so that it didn't move around. Charlie Word was one of the men, and he was standing there playing as they moved along.

 Beverly said that she took piano lessons from Mrs. Dumlin, a school teacher.  She went to Mrs. Dumlin's house after school.  Sherrill took lessons for a couple of years from Mrs. Pressure from Bakersfield.  Then Butch, (me) took lessons from the same teacher for a couple of years.  Mrs. Pressure would drive to Alpaugh and give lessons to several students on Saturdays.  Moma loved music, and she didn't mind listening to us practicing on the old piano, sour notes and all.  

  When mom and dad moved to the new house, the piano stayed in a corner of the garage.  Stayed there for 30 years.  Mice and other critters made it their home.  When the house sold, we moved a lot of stuff to storage in Hanford.  Including the piano.  Finally, after several years, we cleaned out the storage unit and dismantled the old piano.  Kimberly has the front sounding board as a wall decoration, and Beverly has the two pillar like legs for candle holders.  I have one of the handles from the back side that was used for moving it around.  The rest, including the metal strings and frame went to the recycle center in Hanford.

8.  Embroidery Thread

Melissa Jane Blaylock Gazaway, mother to Grannie Daisy Krebbs, used to tell her this story about buying thread for embroidery.  She had gone to the store by herself one day to buy some embroidery thread.  She was returning home when she spied some soldiers up ahead in the road.  They had been warned to stay away from the soldiers.  She dropped her embroidery threads and quickly ran to the bushes and hid.  She had to wait for the soldiers to pass before she dared to come out.  She came out and looked for her threads and finally found them. 

Don't know what soldiers she was referring to.  They lived in Arkansas at the time, and Melissa Jane was born in 1851, so it could have been during the Civil War or after.  Could have been Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, or Union soldiers after the Civil War. When Beverly and I were visiting a cousin, Melissa Jane Richardson in Shawnee, Ok, she told us that she had heard the same story, and that she had an old quilt that Melissa Jane Blaylock Gazaway had made.  She brought it out for us to look at, and every square of the quilt was embroidered.   I took pictures of each square, and you can find a sample below. 

Also noted, quilt square material was often attached to old newspaper as a firm backing to help in the embroidery process.  Most people then removed the newspaper before the actual quilting was done.  But Melissa Jane didn't do that.  She left the newspaper attached to the squares.  Wensel said that as a little girl she would sleep under her grandmother Melissa Jane's quilts, and they would keep her awake all night because of the rustling sounds that the newspapers made.