Much of this is from the memories of Minnie Lula McDaniel Oberg.
Isaac Richard McDaniel was born 26 Aug 1865 in Lee Co., VA to Asa Harvey and Margaret Ersula DeBusk McDaniel. He was know as Ike. Lula Minnie Whitehead was born in Lee County also, and when Ike was 22, she became his wife on 15 Dec 1887. They continued to live in Lee County and their first five children, Orval, Nora, Leon, Claude, and Ray, were born there. Sometime between 1900 and 1903, they moved to Bartlesville, Washington Co., OK where they lived when their youngest child, Minnie, was born. Lula died 4 days later and is buried in White Rose Cemetery at Bartlesville beside her brother. The baby, Minnie, was cared for by Ike's brother and Lula's sister, Bill and Darcus McDaniel. In 1906, Ike went back to Lee Co., and married Mary Byington on 18 Sept 1906. He brought her back to Oklahoma or Kansas where she assumed the roll of mother to Ike's children. On 14 Mar 1908 they added a baby to the family. Goldie Marie was born blind.
Ike and his boys were good farmers and always lived in the country. In 1912, they moved from Kansas to the Panhandle of Oklahoma. They rented 2 boxcars and moved all the furniture, farm implements, cattle, and horses. Orval, Claude and their cousin, Spud, went with the two cars as overseer of the stock. The rest of the family came by passenger train. There were already several McDaniel's in the area, so they met the train with wagons and moved them to their new home in the Bertrand Community. Ike had been there earlier and bought a half section of land. There was a small 2 room house, a windmill and a large water tank. They had quite a McDaniel community with the family already there.
They hired a carpenter and made their own concrete blocks to build the new house. It was a big home - 4 big rooms downstairs and 2 large rooms upstairs.
They also build a barn, chicken house and a cellar to keep fruit and vegetables in through the winter, and an underground silo.
There were a lot of rattle snakes. Their dog would bark when he found one until someone came to kill it or until it got away. When the dog got bit, they fed him all the fat meat he'd eat. That seemed to kill the poison.
Ike raised hogs and did his own butchering and curing the meat, and he made his own cure. They would take all the leaf fat and fat cut from the hams, shoulders and other parts and cut it up in small squares or pieces and put it all in a large kettle. They had a brass kettle black iron on the outside that they used to render the lard. There was a frame to set it in and then build a fire under it and it had to be stirred all the time until the pieces of meat were brown, proving that the water was all out and they drained it and put the pieces of meat in a cloth bag and squeezed all the lard out. They took the hog's head and cleaned it then split it in two, cooked it and took all the skin off then ground the meat, added salt, pepper and sage and mixed it well. After it cooled it became solid, then they would slice it for sandwiches. It was called "head cheese" &, according to daughter Minnie, it was very good.
They went to a Methodist Church in the country. The church split over whether to use quarterlies or just use the Bible. One group left and formed a nondenominational church that soon had a lot of members. Minnie thought one of her uncles gave a piece of land to build the church on.
They milked 7 cows then the milk was separated from the cream. They had a separator. It was put together, then the milk was poured in a large container and they turned a wheel and ran the milk through and it would separate the cream from the milk. Then the separator would have to be taken apart and hand washed after each use. The cream was taken to the store and sold as were the eggs they gathered.
The kids rode to school on a burro or a horse. One year, Minnie went to a school a little further from home (5 miles) so she drove a horse & buggy. When they went to church, they used the wagon because the buggy wasn't big enough for them. Orval, who was courting Flora Leake, would use the buggy to take them to church. He had a beautiful black horse and he kept him so slick and pretty and his harness would have big white rings for decorations which was really nice. The horse's name was Cassey. Orval and Flora married in 1915 and began raising their family in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Claude and Leon both had cars, but when their father, Ike, went anywhere, he usually took the rest of the family in the buggy and drove a non-skittish horse.
When World War I broke out, Orval was married and Ray was too young to go, but Leon was drafted in the army, and Claude volunteered in the Navy. A few years after the war, Claude married Minna Brakhage.
In 1919, Ike bought his first car, a new Ford 4 door. It cost him $400 cash.
Isaac raised cattle and farmed. He raised mostly corn, Maise, broomcorn, and 1/2 acre of pinto beans and 1/2 acre of watermelons & cantaloupe. When the melons were ripe, he would take a wagon load to Texline, TX or Clayton, NM and sell them on the street and in the stores for 5 and 10 cents each. Those towns were around 30 miles away.
After living in Oklahoma 7 years, they moved back to Kansas. Ike bought 40 acres 1/4 mile west of Savonburg. This was in 1919. There were 8 rooms in the house there, 4 downstairs and 4 upstairs. It also had a screened in front porch on the front and Ike built a full length porch on the back. It was not "modern," but had an "out house with 2 holes for personal use," & they had to carry their water inside & had a big wash tub for bathing.
Orval, Leon and Claude stayed in the Panhandle area. Ray and Minnie moved back to Kansas with them. Ray met Violet Miller and married her. She died in childbirth, but their son lived. Ray married Phoebe Irene Turk and they eventually moved to California. Minnie met John Martin Oberg and married him in 1926. They also eventually moved to California.
Ike, Mary and Goldie lived at Savonburg, KS the rest of their lives and the three of them are buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery, Neosho Co., KS.