(Owen Henry Creason)
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday for O. H. Creason, 701 West Avenue B., long-time Elk City resident and Beckham County pioneer. Mr. Creason died Wednesday December 24, 1952 in Cheyenne hospital after being seriously ill for three weeks. Last rites will be read at the First Methodist church by Rev. J. Cecil Coover. Mr. Creason was born September 11, 1861 in Rockford, Ill. On January 1, 1884, he was married to Ida Mae Klopfenstein, who preceded him in death on June 29, 1930. Mr. and Mrs. Creason homesteaded on a farm near Berlin in 1899, and moved to Elk City in 1926. He was a member of the Methodist church.He is survived by one son, Paul Creason of Elk City; four daughters, Vivian Creason of Elk City, Mrs. Dulcie Askey, San Bernadino, California; Mrs. Roxie Givens, Richmond, California; and Mrs. Sarah Riggs, Pratt, Kansas, 11 grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren.Casket bearers will be Oran Golden, Travis Hayes, W. W. Blackburn, Chester Millinton, Forrest Baker, and Fred Wise. Interment will be at Berlin cemetery, Berlin, Roger Mills County, Oklahoma with Martin-Hullum funeral directors in charge of arrangements.
December 27, 1952
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Owen was born September 11, 1861 in Illinois, son of Andrew Creason and Roxie Ann Davis.
My family and I left Kansas and started to the Territory to make the Run in 1889. When we got to Salt Fork of the Arkansas River the river was up so we took cold feet and wouldn't cross, some plunged off in the river, some crossed the railroad tracks; they laid planks across to lead their stock across the river on. We turned and went back to Kansas and made a crop, then came back in December to the Chickasaw Nation and leased some land from an Indian woman of the name Anna White, on Walnut Creek. We moved in a one room stockade house; the way it was built was with split logs stood up for the walls, then dirt piled around them to chink the cracks and keep out the rain and wind. We lived in this while I dug two dugouts, covered them with split logs and dirt, then we moved in our new home, located eight miles west of Purcell. Our schoolhouse was a little box schoolhouse made with cottonwood but called the Walnut School House. We farmed and made a good crop.
I went over in the Pottawatomie Country and made the Run in 1891, but didn't get any claim, so I went back home.
One winter day when snow was on the ground I took my gun and went rabbit hunting. It wasn't long until I came upon some panther tracks so I started out tracking the panther and I tracked him for quite a ways and discovered that he had circled back and was tracking me. I was ready to turn back and go home for I didn't fell like I was ready for a fight.
There was quite a lot of wild fruit such as plums and grapes, also lots of pecans, walnuts, and hickory nuts.
In 1893 my father-in-law and I set out to make the run in the Strip known as the Cherokee Strip. We went horseback and camped on the line the night before the opening. It was dry and water was scarce, so they hauled some water there in barrels and sold it for 5 cents a drink and it was almost as red as this dirt but it was good. My father-in-law, Peter Klapenstine [Klopfenstein], and I made the run and set down our stakes but learned that we had set them on school land so we did't take them. As we made the run we came across people ahead of us already working, some with plowing oxen. We wondered how they beat us so much as we were riding good horses. We made the run from the line that was twenty-five miles north of Hennessey. After the run we went back home and kept on farming until 1895, the time of the opening over in the Pottawatomie, when the opening was made for town lots at Tecumseh for the County seat. When we go there and looked the thing over, Mr. Klapenstine [Klopfenstein] and I decided we didn't want in on the Run so we got up on a Government truck and watched the run; it was a sight, people running over each other and a number of people trampled to death. After the run we went on our way back home without any claims.
I stayed there on my place and farmed until August 1899 when my father-in-law and a Mr. Bailey came out to this country to look for a location and I located a homestead three miles west of Berlin and went back to Oklahoma City and filed then went back after my family and stock. We moved in covered wagons and brought with us eighteen head of cattle, eight head of horses, two pigs, and twelve chickens. When we got to the Caddo line we were held up eight days on account of the quarantine; the stock had to be dipped for fear there would be ticks brought to the West. It was in December and was sleeting and snowing but we had a tent to stay in and were comfortable. We crossed the Washita River at Big Jack; it was frozen over on both sides so I had to wade the river and take my axe and cut the ice before we could cross. The water came up to my waist so we had to build a fire so I could dry and warm when we got across the river. it took six days for us to come from the Caddo line to our claim in Roger Mills County.
When my wife, four children and I cam to old Roger Mills County and settled west of Berlin on our 160 acre homestead, we were like many of our pioneer neighbors; very poor in this world's good, but filled with determination to make the virgin land give us a livelihood and still more, and education for our children. When we first landed in old Roger Mills County, which at that time comprised both Roger Mills and Beckham Counties, there was no town closer than Cheyenne, the county seat of Roger Mills and there was only one schoolhouse for many miles around; it was situated on the spot where the brick consolidated school at Berlin now stands. The first school building was built of native cottonwood logs and our children attended this school, walking four miles every day. Other children walked from distances of six miles and ten miles in order to get an education.
At that time neighbors were few and far between. We were all from different parts of the United States but we loved and admired every settler we knew. Our first home was a one room box house, 8x10 feet, covered with tin roofing that we brought from Purcell with us. Most of the houses were shacks, we called them dugouts. They were dugout holes n the ground with barely enough room to turn around but to us they were home and protection from the severe weather. When we would to to town early in the morning we would see smoke rising out of the ground here and there over the vast prairie and this we knew to be the home of some neighbor, "old nesters" as the cattlemen called us. We also knew that the pioneer women were preparing breakfast for their families, oftentimes this meager breakfast consisted of bread and water.
Some few of the settlers were able to have coffee and water gravy was a luxury in those days. There was no food to be had unless you had money and we were just as poor as it was possible to be. We brought with us a fifty gallon barrel of sorghum and we raised a good crop of pie melons so we would stew them and sweeten them with sorghum and thought they were good eating.
We started with a wagon load of corn when we left the Chickasaw Nation, but when we were held up on the Caddo line so long we fed most of it to our stock, so when we got there we were almost out of feed. I bought one hundred shocks of corn paying 25 cents a shock for it and hauled it thirty-five miles. The first year we were here I put in twelve acres of sod crop and made a good crop.
In June I was going over near Vernon, Texas to harvest and there was a drift fence south of us, the cattlemen said they would keep their cattle on the north side of this fence and I wouldn't have to fence my crop as I didn't have the money to buy the wire. The very next morning after I left they put their cattle over on the south side and came and told my wife she had better fence the feed or it would be eaten up. She didn't know what to do; her father, Mr. Klapenstine [Klopfenstein], was there but he was getting very old. He went over to Berlin and talked to a Mr. Clay who had a little store there at that time, told him the circumstances, and Mr. Clay lent him wire to fence the crop. My wife and her father cut posts and set them and did the fencing.
The following December after we came here a terrible prairie fire broke out up in the Sweetwater country, the wind got in the southwest and the fire almost swept the country before the settlers got it under control. There was a family of six of the name of Stacker living in a tent who had not plowed a fire guard; their tent burned up and they walked six and one-fourth miles carrying the baby to a neighbor's who lived in a dugout. The meat was cooked and turned back on their feet and four of them died from the burns. The baby was nearly burned up, its face and eyes were burned so it couldn't see. The father was away from home but neighbors got him word and when he got there and poke the baby knew his voice and said, "Daddy." It died a little later.
There were plenty of snakes with us. One night we heard one singing and my wife got up and lit the lamp and found a large rattler stretched across the door. There was some deer and antelope, quail and prairie chickens; the chickens were so thick that they would almost destroy the feed, but as the people came in most of them were done away with.
There were no railroad any closer to us than Weatherford or Mountain View so it was necessary to haul most of our lumber and supplies overland. Oxen and horses were used to haul the lumber, household good, and other necessary equipments for the maintenance of life from the closest railroad. It was the custom for the neighbors living within a radius of miles around to gather at one of the dugouts and all sit around out-of-doors and visit and exchange news. We enjoyed this more than the people who were not in this part of the world knew anything about.
We lived on our claim until 1926, then we came to Elk city. My wife died June 29, 1930 and is buried in the Berlin Cemetery. I am living here in Elk City with some of my children but still own the place I filed on.
Owen Henry Creason, October 25, 1937.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday for O. H. Creason, 701 West Avenue B., long-time Elk City resident and Beckham County pioneer. Mr. Creason died Wednesday December 24, 1952 in Cheyenne hospital after being seriously ill for three weeks. Last rites will be read at the First Methodist church by Rev. J. Cecil Coover. Mr. Creason was born September 11, 1861 in Rockford, Ill. On January 1, 1884, he was married to Ida Mae Klopfenstein, who preceded him in death on June 29, 1930. Mr. and Mrs. Creason homesteaded on a farm near Berlin in 1899, and moved to Elk City in 1926. He was a member of the Methodist church.He is survived by one son, Paul Creason of Elk City; four daughters, Vivian Creason of Elk City, Mrs. Dulcie Askey, San Bernadino, California; Mrs. Roxie Givens, Richmond, California; and Mrs. Sarah Riggs, Pratt, Kansas, 11 grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren.Casket bearers will be Oran Golden, Travis Hayes, W. W. Blackburn, Chester Millinton, Forrest Baker, and Fred Wise. Interment will be at Berlin cemetery, Berlin, Roger Mills County, Oklahoma with Martin-Hullum funeral directors in charge of arrangements.
December 27, 1952
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Owen was born September 11, 1861 in Illinois, son of Andrew Creason and Roxie Ann Davis.
My family and I left Kansas and started to the Territory to make the Run in 1889. When we got to Salt Fork of the Arkansas River the river was up so we took cold feet and wouldn't cross, some plunged off in the river, some crossed the railroad tracks; they laid planks across to lead their stock across the river on. We turned and went back to Kansas and made a crop, then came back in December to the Chickasaw Nation and leased some land from an Indian woman of the name Anna White, on Walnut Creek. We moved in a one room stockade house; the way it was built was with split logs stood up for the walls, then dirt piled around them to chink the cracks and keep out the rain and wind. We lived in this while I dug two dugouts, covered them with split logs and dirt, then we moved in our new home, located eight miles west of Purcell. Our schoolhouse was a little box schoolhouse made with cottonwood but called the Walnut School House. We farmed and made a good crop.
I went over in the Pottawatomie Country and made the Run in 1891, but didn't get any claim, so I went back home.
One winter day when snow was on the ground I took my gun and went rabbit hunting. It wasn't long until I came upon some panther tracks so I started out tracking the panther and I tracked him for quite a ways and discovered that he had circled back and was tracking me. I was ready to turn back and go home for I didn't fell like I was ready for a fight.
There was quite a lot of wild fruit such as plums and grapes, also lots of pecans, walnuts, and hickory nuts.
In 1893 my father-in-law and I set out to make the run in the Strip known as the Cherokee Strip. We went horseback and camped on the line the night before the opening. It was dry and water was scarce, so they hauled some water there in barrels and sold it for 5 cents a drink and it was almost as red as this dirt but it was good. My father-in-law, Peter Klapenstine [Klopfenstein], and I made the run and set down our stakes but learned that we had set them on school land so we did't take them. As we made the run we came across people ahead of us already working, some with plowing oxen. We wondered how they beat us so much as we were riding good horses. We made the run from the line that was twenty-five miles north of Hennessey. After the run we went back home and kept on farming until 1895, the time of the opening over in the Pottawatomie, when the opening was made for town lots at Tecumseh for the County seat. When we go there and looked the thing over, Mr. Klapenstine [Klopfenstein] and I decided we didn't want in on the Run so we got up on a Government truck and watched the run; it was a sight, people running over each other and a number of people trampled to death. After the run we went on our way back home without any claims.
I stayed there on my place and farmed until August 1899 when my father-in-law and a Mr. Bailey came out to this country to look for a location and I located a homestead three miles west of Berlin and went back to Oklahoma City and filed then went back after my family and stock. We moved in covered wagons and brought with us eighteen head of cattle, eight head of horses, two pigs, and twelve chickens. When we got to the Caddo line we were held up eight days on account of the quarantine; the stock had to be dipped for fear there would be ticks brought to the West. It was in December and was sleeting and snowing but we had a tent to stay in and were comfortable. We crossed the Washita River at Big Jack; it was frozen over on both sides so I had to wade the river and take my axe and cut the ice before we could cross. The water came up to my waist so we had to build a fire so I could dry and warm when we got across the river. it took six days for us to come from the Caddo line to our claim in Roger Mills County.
When my wife, four children and I cam to old Roger Mills County and settled west of Berlin on our 160 acre homestead, we were like many of our pioneer neighbors; very poor in this world's good, but filled with determination to make the virgin land give us a livelihood and still more, and education for our children. When we first landed in old Roger Mills County, which at that time comprised both Roger Mills and Beckham Counties, there was no town closer than Cheyenne, the county seat of Roger Mills and there was only one schoolhouse for many miles around; it was situated on the spot where the brick consolidated school at Berlin now stands. The first school building was built of native cottonwood logs and our children attended this school, walking four miles every day. Other children walked from distances of six miles and ten miles in order to get an education.
At that time neighbors were few and far between. We were all from different parts of the United States but we loved and admired every settler we knew. Our first home was a one room box house, 8x10 feet, covered with tin roofing that we brought from Purcell with us. Most of the houses were shacks, we called them dugouts. They were dugout holes n the ground with barely enough room to turn around but to us they were home and protection from the severe weather. When we would to to town early in the morning we would see smoke rising out of the ground here and there over the vast prairie and this we knew to be the home of some neighbor, "old nesters" as the cattlemen called us. We also knew that the pioneer women were preparing breakfast for their families, oftentimes this meager breakfast consisted of bread and water.
Some few of the settlers were able to have coffee and water gravy was a luxury in those days. There was no food to be had unless you had money and we were just as poor as it was possible to be. We brought with us a fifty gallon barrel of sorghum and we raised a good crop of pie melons so we would stew them and sweeten them with sorghum and thought they were good eating.
We started with a wagon load of corn when we left the Chickasaw Nation, but when we were held up on the Caddo line so long we fed most of it to our stock, so when we got there we were almost out of feed. I bought one hundred shocks of corn paying 25 cents a shock for it and hauled it thirty-five miles. The first year we were here I put in twelve acres of sod crop and made a good crop.
In June I was going over near Vernon, Texas to harvest and there was a drift fence south of us, the cattlemen said they would keep their cattle on the north side of this fence and I wouldn't have to fence my crop as I didn't have the money to buy the wire. The very next morning after I left they put their cattle over on the south side and came and told my wife she had better fence the feed or it would be eaten up. She didn't know what to do; her father, Mr. Klapenstine [Klopfenstein], was there but he was getting very old. He went over to Berlin and talked to a Mr. Clay who had a little store there at that time, told him the circumstances, and Mr. Clay lent him wire to fence the crop. My wife and her father cut posts and set them and did the fencing.
The following December after we came here a terrible prairie fire broke out up in the Sweetwater country, the wind got in the southwest and the fire almost swept the country before the settlers got it under control. There was a family of six of the name of Stacker living in a tent who had not plowed a fire guard; their tent burned up and they walked six and one-fourth miles carrying the baby to a neighbor's who lived in a dugout. The meat was cooked and turned back on their feet and four of them died from the burns. The baby was nearly burned up, its face and eyes were burned so it couldn't see. The father was away from home but neighbors got him word and when he got there and poke the baby knew his voice and said, "Daddy." It died a little later.
There were plenty of snakes with us. One night we heard one singing and my wife got up and lit the lamp and found a large rattler stretched across the door. There was some deer and antelope, quail and prairie chickens; the chickens were so thick that they would almost destroy the feed, but as the people came in most of them were done away with.
There were no railroad any closer to us than Weatherford or Mountain View so it was necessary to haul most of our lumber and supplies overland. Oxen and horses were used to haul the lumber, household good, and other necessary equipments for the maintenance of life from the closest railroad. It was the custom for the neighbors living within a radius of miles around to gather at one of the dugouts and all sit around out-of-doors and visit and exchange news. We enjoyed this more than the people who were not in this part of the world knew anything about.
We lived on our claim until 1926, then we came to Elk city. My wife died June 29, 1930 and is buried in the Berlin Cemetery. I am living here in Elk City with some of my children but still own the place I filed on.
Owen Henry Creason, October 25, 1937.
(Owen Henry Creason)
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday for O. H. Creason, 701 West Avenue B., long-time Elk City resident and Beckham County pioneer. Mr. Creason died Wednesday December 24, 1952 in Cheyenne hospital after being seriously ill for three weeks. Last rites will be read at the First Methodist church by Rev. J. Cecil Coover. Mr. Creason was born September 11, 1861 in Rockford, Ill. On January 1, 1884, he was married to Ida Mae Klopfenstein, who preceded him in death on June 29, 1930. Mr. and Mrs. Creason homesteaded on a farm near Berlin in 1899, and moved to Elk City in 1926. He was a member of the Methodist church.He is survived by one son, Paul Creason of Elk City; four daughters, Vivian Creason of Elk City, Mrs. Dulcie Askey, San Bernadino, California; Mrs. Roxie Givens, Richmond, California; and Mrs. Sarah Riggs, Pratt, Kansas, 11 grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren.Casket bearers will be Oran Golden, Travis Hayes, W. W. Blackburn, Chester Millinton, Forrest Baker, and Fred Wise. Interment will be at Berlin cemetery, Berlin, Roger Mills County, Oklahoma with Martin-Hullum funeral directors in charge of arrangements.
December 27, 1952
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Owen was born September 11, 1861 in Illinois, son of Andrew Creason and Roxie Ann Davis.
My family and I left Kansas and started to the Territory to make the Run in 1889. When we got to Salt Fork of the Arkansas River the river was up so we took cold feet and wouldn't cross, some plunged off in the river, some crossed the railroad tracks; they laid planks across to lead their stock across the river on. We turned and went back to Kansas and made a crop, then came back in December to the Chickasaw Nation and leased some land from an Indian woman of the name Anna White, on Walnut Creek. We moved in a one room stockade house; the way it was built was with split logs stood up for the walls, then dirt piled around them to chink the cracks and keep out the rain and wind. We lived in this while I dug two dugouts, covered them with split logs and dirt, then we moved in our new home, located eight miles west of Purcell. Our schoolhouse was a little box schoolhouse made with cottonwood but called the Walnut School House. We farmed and made a good crop.
I went over in the Pottawatomie Country and made the Run in 1891, but didn't get any claim, so I went back home.
One winter day when snow was on the ground I took my gun and went rabbit hunting. It wasn't long until I came upon some panther tracks so I started out tracking the panther and I tracked him for quite a ways and discovered that he had circled back and was tracking me. I was ready to turn back and go home for I didn't fell like I was ready for a fight.
There was quite a lot of wild fruit such as plums and grapes, also lots of pecans, walnuts, and hickory nuts.
In 1893 my father-in-law and I set out to make the run in the Strip known as the Cherokee Strip. We went horseback and camped on the line the night before the opening. It was dry and water was scarce, so they hauled some water there in barrels and sold it for 5 cents a drink and it was almost as red as this dirt but it was good. My father-in-law, Peter Klapenstine [Klopfenstein], and I made the run and set down our stakes but learned that we had set them on school land so we did't take them. As we made the run we came across people ahead of us already working, some with plowing oxen. We wondered how they beat us so much as we were riding good horses. We made the run from the line that was twenty-five miles north of Hennessey. After the run we went back home and kept on farming until 1895, the time of the opening over in the Pottawatomie, when the opening was made for town lots at Tecumseh for the County seat. When we go there and looked the thing over, Mr. Klapenstine [Klopfenstein] and I decided we didn't want in on the Run so we got up on a Government truck and watched the run; it was a sight, people running over each other and a number of people trampled to death. After the run we went on our way back home without any claims.
I stayed there on my place and farmed until August 1899 when my father-in-law and a Mr. Bailey came out to this country to look for a location and I located a homestead three miles west of Berlin and went back to Oklahoma City and filed then went back after my family and stock. We moved in covered wagons and brought with us eighteen head of cattle, eight head of horses, two pigs, and twelve chickens. When we got to the Caddo line we were held up eight days on account of the quarantine; the stock had to be dipped for fear there would be ticks brought to the West. It was in December and was sleeting and snowing but we had a tent to stay in and were comfortable. We crossed the Washita River at Big Jack; it was frozen over on both sides so I had to wade the river and take my axe and cut the ice before we could cross. The water came up to my waist so we had to build a fire so I could dry and warm when we got across the river. it took six days for us to come from the Caddo line to our claim in Roger Mills County.
When my wife, four children and I cam to old Roger Mills County and settled west of Berlin on our 160 acre homestead, we were like many of our pioneer neighbors; very poor in this world's good, but filled with determination to make the virgin land give us a livelihood and still more, and education for our children. When we first landed in old Roger Mills County, which at that time comprised both Roger Mills and Beckham Counties, there was no town closer than Cheyenne, the county seat of Roger Mills and there was only one schoolhouse for many miles around; it was situated on the spot where the brick consolidated school at Berlin now stands. The first school building was built of native cottonwood logs and our children attended this school, walking four miles every day. Other children walked from distances of six miles and ten miles in order to get an education.
At that time neighbors were few and far between. We were all from different parts of the United States but we loved and admired every settler we knew. Our first home was a one room box house, 8x10 feet, covered with tin roofing that we brought from Purcell with us. Most of the houses were shacks, we called them dugouts. They were dugout holes n the ground with barely enough room to turn around but to us they were home and protection from the severe weather. When we would to to town early in the morning we would see smoke rising out of the ground here and there over the vast prairie and this we knew to be the home of some neighbor, "old nesters" as the cattlemen called us. We also knew that the pioneer women were preparing breakfast for their families, oftentimes this meager breakfast consisted of bread and water.
Some few of the settlers were able to have coffee and water gravy was a luxury in those days. There was no food to be had unless you had money and we were just as poor as it was possible to be. We brought with us a fifty gallon barrel of sorghum and we raised a good crop of pie melons so we would stew them and sweeten them with sorghum and thought they were good eating.
We started with a wagon load of corn when we left the Chickasaw Nation, but when we were held up on the Caddo line so long we fed most of it to our stock, so when we got there we were almost out of feed. I bought one hundred shocks of corn paying 25 cents a shock for it and hauled it thirty-five miles. The first year we were here I put in twelve acres of sod crop and made a good crop.
In June I was going over near Vernon, Texas to harvest and there was a drift fence south of us, the cattlemen said they would keep their cattle on the north side of this fence and I wouldn't have to fence my crop as I didn't have the money to buy the wire. The very next morning after I left they put their cattle over on the south side and came and told my wife she had better fence the feed or it would be eaten up. She didn't know what to do; her father, Mr. Klapenstine [Klopfenstein], was there but he was getting very old. He went over to Berlin and talked to a Mr. Clay who had a little store there at that time, told him the circumstances, and Mr. Clay lent him wire to fence the crop. My wife and her father cut posts and set them and did the fencing.
The following December after we came here a terrible prairie fire broke out up in the Sweetwater country, the wind got in the southwest and the fire almost swept the country before the settlers got it under control. There was a family of six of the name of Stacker living in a tent who had not plowed a fire guard; their tent burned up and they walked six and one-fourth miles carrying the baby to a neighbor's who lived in a dugout. The meat was cooked and turned back on their feet and four of them died from the burns. The baby was nearly burned up, its face and eyes were burned so it couldn't see. The father was away from home but neighbors got him word and when he got there and poke the baby knew his voice and said, "Daddy." It died a little later.
There were plenty of snakes with us. One night we heard one singing and my wife got up and lit the lamp and found a large rattler stretched across the door. There was some deer and antelope, quail and prairie chickens; the chickens were so thick that they would almost destroy the feed, but as the people came in most of them were done away with.
There were no railroad any closer to us than Weatherford or Mountain View so it was necessary to haul most of our lumber and supplies overland. Oxen and horses were used to haul the lumber, household good, and other necessary equipments for the maintenance of life from the closest railroad. It was the custom for the neighbors living within a radius of miles around to gather at one of the dugouts and all sit around out-of-doors and visit and exchange news. We enjoyed this more than the people who were not in this part of the world knew anything about.
We lived on our claim until 1926, then we came to Elk city. My wife died June 29, 1930 and is buried in the Berlin Cemetery. I am living here in Elk City with some of my children but still own the place I filed on.
Owen Henry Creason, October 25, 1937.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday for O. H. Creason, 701 West Avenue B., long-time Elk City resident and Beckham County pioneer. Mr. Creason died Wednesday December 24, 1952 in Cheyenne hospital after being seriously ill for three weeks. Last rites will be read at the First Methodist church by Rev. J. Cecil Coover. Mr. Creason was born September 11, 1861 in Rockford, Ill. On January 1, 1884, he was married to Ida Mae Klopfenstein, who preceded him in death on June 29, 1930. Mr. and Mrs. Creason homesteaded on a farm near Berlin in 1899, and moved to Elk City in 1926. He was a member of the Methodist church.He is survived by one son, Paul Creason of Elk City; four daughters, Vivian Creason of Elk City, Mrs. Dulcie Askey, San Bernadino, California; Mrs. Roxie Givens, Richmond, California; and Mrs. Sarah Riggs, Pratt, Kansas, 11 grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren.Casket bearers will be Oran Golden, Travis Hayes, W. W. Blackburn, Chester Millinton, Forrest Baker, and Fred Wise. Interment will be at Berlin cemetery, Berlin, Roger Mills County, Oklahoma with Martin-Hullum funeral directors in charge of arrangements.
December 27, 1952
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Owen was born September 11, 1861 in Illinois, son of Andrew Creason and Roxie Ann Davis.
My family and I left Kansas and started to the Territory to make the Run in 1889. When we got to Salt Fork of the Arkansas River the river was up so we took cold feet and wouldn't cross, some plunged off in the river, some crossed the railroad tracks; they laid planks across to lead their stock across the river on. We turned and went back to Kansas and made a crop, then came back in December to the Chickasaw Nation and leased some land from an Indian woman of the name Anna White, on Walnut Creek. We moved in a one room stockade house; the way it was built was with split logs stood up for the walls, then dirt piled around them to chink the cracks and keep out the rain and wind. We lived in this while I dug two dugouts, covered them with split logs and dirt, then we moved in our new home, located eight miles west of Purcell. Our schoolhouse was a little box schoolhouse made with cottonwood but called the Walnut School House. We farmed and made a good crop.
I went over in the Pottawatomie Country and made the Run in 1891, but didn't get any claim, so I went back home.
One winter day when snow was on the ground I took my gun and went rabbit hunting. It wasn't long until I came upon some panther tracks so I started out tracking the panther and I tracked him for quite a ways and discovered that he had circled back and was tracking me. I was ready to turn back and go home for I didn't fell like I was ready for a fight.
There was quite a lot of wild fruit such as plums and grapes, also lots of pecans, walnuts, and hickory nuts.
In 1893 my father-in-law and I set out to make the run in the Strip known as the Cherokee Strip. We went horseback and camped on the line the night before the opening. It was dry and water was scarce, so they hauled some water there in barrels and sold it for 5 cents a drink and it was almost as red as this dirt but it was good. My father-in-law, Peter Klapenstine [Klopfenstein], and I made the run and set down our stakes but learned that we had set them on school land so we did't take them. As we made the run we came across people ahead of us already working, some with plowing oxen. We wondered how they beat us so much as we were riding good horses. We made the run from the line that was twenty-five miles north of Hennessey. After the run we went back home and kept on farming until 1895, the time of the opening over in the Pottawatomie, when the opening was made for town lots at Tecumseh for the County seat. When we go there and looked the thing over, Mr. Klapenstine [Klopfenstein] and I decided we didn't want in on the Run so we got up on a Government truck and watched the run; it was a sight, people running over each other and a number of people trampled to death. After the run we went on our way back home without any claims.
I stayed there on my place and farmed until August 1899 when my father-in-law and a Mr. Bailey came out to this country to look for a location and I located a homestead three miles west of Berlin and went back to Oklahoma City and filed then went back after my family and stock. We moved in covered wagons and brought with us eighteen head of cattle, eight head of horses, two pigs, and twelve chickens. When we got to the Caddo line we were held up eight days on account of the quarantine; the stock had to be dipped for fear there would be ticks brought to the West. It was in December and was sleeting and snowing but we had a tent to stay in and were comfortable. We crossed the Washita River at Big Jack; it was frozen over on both sides so I had to wade the river and take my axe and cut the ice before we could cross. The water came up to my waist so we had to build a fire so I could dry and warm when we got across the river. it took six days for us to come from the Caddo line to our claim in Roger Mills County.
When my wife, four children and I cam to old Roger Mills County and settled west of Berlin on our 160 acre homestead, we were like many of our pioneer neighbors; very poor in this world's good, but filled with determination to make the virgin land give us a livelihood and still more, and education for our children. When we first landed in old Roger Mills County, which at that time comprised both Roger Mills and Beckham Counties, there was no town closer than Cheyenne, the county seat of Roger Mills and there was only one schoolhouse for many miles around; it was situated on the spot where the brick consolidated school at Berlin now stands. The first school building was built of native cottonwood logs and our children attended this school, walking four miles every day. Other children walked from distances of six miles and ten miles in order to get an education.
At that time neighbors were few and far between. We were all from different parts of the United States but we loved and admired every settler we knew. Our first home was a one room box house, 8x10 feet, covered with tin roofing that we brought from Purcell with us. Most of the houses were shacks, we called them dugouts. They were dugout holes n the ground with barely enough room to turn around but to us they were home and protection from the severe weather. When we would to to town early in the morning we would see smoke rising out of the ground here and there over the vast prairie and this we knew to be the home of some neighbor, "old nesters" as the cattlemen called us. We also knew that the pioneer women were preparing breakfast for their families, oftentimes this meager breakfast consisted of bread and water.
Some few of the settlers were able to have coffee and water gravy was a luxury in those days. There was no food to be had unless you had money and we were just as poor as it was possible to be. We brought with us a fifty gallon barrel of sorghum and we raised a good crop of pie melons so we would stew them and sweeten them with sorghum and thought they were good eating.
We started with a wagon load of corn when we left the Chickasaw Nation, but when we were held up on the Caddo line so long we fed most of it to our stock, so when we got there we were almost out of feed. I bought one hundred shocks of corn paying 25 cents a shock for it and hauled it thirty-five miles. The first year we were here I put in twelve acres of sod crop and made a good crop.
In June I was going over near Vernon, Texas to harvest and there was a drift fence south of us, the cattlemen said they would keep their cattle on the north side of this fence and I wouldn't have to fence my crop as I didn't have the money to buy the wire. The very next morning after I left they put their cattle over on the south side and came and told my wife she had better fence the feed or it would be eaten up. She didn't know what to do; her father, Mr. Klapenstine [Klopfenstein], was there but he was getting very old. He went over to Berlin and talked to a Mr. Clay who had a little store there at that time, told him the circumstances, and Mr. Clay lent him wire to fence the crop. My wife and her father cut posts and set them and did the fencing.
The following December after we came here a terrible prairie fire broke out up in the Sweetwater country, the wind got in the southwest and the fire almost swept the country before the settlers got it under control. There was a family of six of the name of Stacker living in a tent who had not plowed a fire guard; their tent burned up and they walked six and one-fourth miles carrying the baby to a neighbor's who lived in a dugout. The meat was cooked and turned back on their feet and four of them died from the burns. The baby was nearly burned up, its face and eyes were burned so it couldn't see. The father was away from home but neighbors got him word and when he got there and poke the baby knew his voice and said, "Daddy." It died a little later.
There were plenty of snakes with us. One night we heard one singing and my wife got up and lit the lamp and found a large rattler stretched across the door. There was some deer and antelope, quail and prairie chickens; the chickens were so thick that they would almost destroy the feed, but as the people came in most of them were done away with.
There were no railroad any closer to us than Weatherford or Mountain View so it was necessary to haul most of our lumber and supplies overland. Oxen and horses were used to haul the lumber, household good, and other necessary equipments for the maintenance of life from the closest railroad. It was the custom for the neighbors living within a radius of miles around to gather at one of the dugouts and all sit around out-of-doors and visit and exchange news. We enjoyed this more than the people who were not in this part of the world knew anything about.
We lived on our claim until 1926, then we came to Elk city. My wife died June 29, 1930 and is buried in the Berlin Cemetery. I am living here in Elk City with some of my children but still own the place I filed on.
Owen Henry Creason, October 25, 1937.
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