The following story was written by Hugh Volney Jobe:
People talk about the good days, and some say they would not go back to them and have to live again and go through life as we did them. Some say give us the good old days and I say amen.
In 1875 my father moved to the Choctaw Nation, what is now Leflore County Oklahoma. Father was a blacksmith and the few people that lived around, would come to his shop and getting acquainted they would come in Sunday afternoon and have games of some kind, pitching horseshoes or playing marbles, mostly Indians, some whites. The Indians were full-bloods and they would go through a whole evening without ever saying a word but they were continually laughing. The white man always had a gun strapped on him but you never heard a cross word from anyone.
There was a small settlement where we lived and then it was miles to another. If an Indian had a house near any road the door was always on the opposite side of the house from the road. There was deer and turkey and squirrels all over the country and any time you wanted to kill a deer or a turkey or get a mess of squirrels all you had to do was go out in the woods and get them. The woods was full of hogs, some were wild and never saw an ear of corn and would fight if you got them cornered. They would get fat in the fall on the acorns and if you wanted to kill a hog you could get an Indian to go with you and he would give you permission to kill as many as you wanted of unmarked hogs: I thought the best hog meat I ever ate.
We learned to talk some of their language, I could count to 100 in Choctaw but have forgotten most that I knew, can count to ten yet. Brother Mc could sit down and hold a conversation wilth a full-blood as easy as a white man. When an Indian was your friend you had a friend you could depend on. One old Indian was always talking about Massipi, he would say last year me caught a little cub bout so big, most big nuff. That was always his hobby, he was getting old and seemed childish and he would remember when he lived in Mississippi, he looked back as that was his home.
Good old days gone forever, but I would willingly live them again. I remember the time an Indian boy came to the shop. It was summer time and he was lying on the ground and had on a new pair of Brogan shoes. Father said to him, "How much did you give for your shoes?" He said "sixbits" and father said you got a cheap pair of shoes and the boy said, " and a dollah". He had paid $1.75 for them but that was the say he expressed it.
It was 30 miles to Fort Smith and the people had to haul their cotton there after they had it ginned. I have seen a wagon with the wheels made out of cuts from a large sycamore tree, loaded with 5 bales of cotton and 4 and 5 yoke of oxen pulling it, going to Fort Smith to market. They had all mud roads and some of it Poteau bottom. There were two ferries or ferrys on Poteau and some times we had to ferry to get to Fort Smith. I left there in 1883 and went to the Cherokee Nation near Vinita. I can remember when there was only one house between Southwest City Mo. and Garry's ferry on Grand River and very few houses between Grand River and Vinita. It was all prairie and the finest of grass.
In the latter part of the eighties and fore part of the nineties they would ship train loads of cattle from Texas up in that country to range through the summer, old Texas longhorns. At that time there were thousands of prairie chickens in that part of the country, but I have not been through that part of the country since 1896. Guess man has spoiled the beauty of it all.
H.V. Jobe
People talk about the good days, and some say they would not go back to them and have to live again and go through life as we did them. Some say give us the good old days and I say amen.
In 1875 my father moved to the Choctaw Nation, what is now Leflore County Oklahoma. Father was a blacksmith and the few people that lived around, would come to his shop and getting acquainted they would come in Sunday afternoon and have games of some kind, pitching horseshoes or playing marbles, mostly Indians, some whites. The Indians were full-bloods and they would go through a whole evening without ever saying a word but they were continually laughing. The white man always had a gun strapped on him but you never heard a cross word from anyone.
There was a small settlement where we lived and then it was miles to another. If an Indian had a house near any road the door was always on the opposite side of the house from the road. There was deer and turkey and squirrels all over the country and any time you wanted to kill a deer or a turkey or get a mess of squirrels all you had to do was go out in the woods and get them. The woods was full of hogs, some were wild and never saw an ear of corn and would fight if you got them cornered. They would get fat in the fall on the acorns and if you wanted to kill a hog you could get an Indian to go with you and he would give you permission to kill as many as you wanted of unmarked hogs: I thought the best hog meat I ever ate.
We learned to talk some of their language, I could count to 100 in Choctaw but have forgotten most that I knew, can count to ten yet. Brother Mc could sit down and hold a conversation wilth a full-blood as easy as a white man. When an Indian was your friend you had a friend you could depend on. One old Indian was always talking about Massipi, he would say last year me caught a little cub bout so big, most big nuff. That was always his hobby, he was getting old and seemed childish and he would remember when he lived in Mississippi, he looked back as that was his home.
Good old days gone forever, but I would willingly live them again. I remember the time an Indian boy came to the shop. It was summer time and he was lying on the ground and had on a new pair of Brogan shoes. Father said to him, "How much did you give for your shoes?" He said "sixbits" and father said you got a cheap pair of shoes and the boy said, " and a dollah". He had paid $1.75 for them but that was the say he expressed it.
It was 30 miles to Fort Smith and the people had to haul their cotton there after they had it ginned. I have seen a wagon with the wheels made out of cuts from a large sycamore tree, loaded with 5 bales of cotton and 4 and 5 yoke of oxen pulling it, going to Fort Smith to market. They had all mud roads and some of it Poteau bottom. There were two ferries or ferrys on Poteau and some times we had to ferry to get to Fort Smith. I left there in 1883 and went to the Cherokee Nation near Vinita. I can remember when there was only one house between Southwest City Mo. and Garry's ferry on Grand River and very few houses between Grand River and Vinita. It was all prairie and the finest of grass.
In the latter part of the eighties and fore part of the nineties they would ship train loads of cattle from Texas up in that country to range through the summer, old Texas longhorns. At that time there were thousands of prairie chickens in that part of the country, but I have not been through that part of the country since 1896. Guess man has spoiled the beauty of it all.
H.V. Jobe
The following story was written by Hugh Volney Jobe:
People talk about the good days, and some say they would not go back to them and have to live again and go through life as we did them. Some say give us the good old days and I say amen.
In 1875 my father moved to the Choctaw Nation, what is now Leflore County Oklahoma. Father was a blacksmith and the few people that lived around, would come to his shop and getting acquainted they would come in Sunday afternoon and have games of some kind, pitching horseshoes or playing marbles, mostly Indians, some whites. The Indians were full-bloods and they would go through a whole evening without ever saying a word but they were continually laughing. The white man always had a gun strapped on him but you never heard a cross word from anyone.
There was a small settlement where we lived and then it was miles to another. If an Indian had a house near any road the door was always on the opposite side of the house from the road. There was deer and turkey and squirrels all over the country and any time you wanted to kill a deer or a turkey or get a mess of squirrels all you had to do was go out in the woods and get them. The woods was full of hogs, some were wild and never saw an ear of corn and would fight if you got them cornered. They would get fat in the fall on the acorns and if you wanted to kill a hog you could get an Indian to go with you and he would give you permission to kill as many as you wanted of unmarked hogs: I thought the best hog meat I ever ate.
We learned to talk some of their language, I could count to 100 in Choctaw but have forgotten most that I knew, can count to ten yet. Brother Mc could sit down and hold a conversation wilth a full-blood as easy as a white man. When an Indian was your friend you had a friend you could depend on. One old Indian was always talking about Massipi, he would say last year me caught a little cub bout so big, most big nuff. That was always his hobby, he was getting old and seemed childish and he would remember when he lived in Mississippi, he looked back as that was his home.
Good old days gone forever, but I would willingly live them again. I remember the time an Indian boy came to the shop. It was summer time and he was lying on the ground and had on a new pair of Brogan shoes. Father said to him, "How much did you give for your shoes?" He said "sixbits" and father said you got a cheap pair of shoes and the boy said, " and a dollah". He had paid $1.75 for them but that was the say he expressed it.
It was 30 miles to Fort Smith and the people had to haul their cotton there after they had it ginned. I have seen a wagon with the wheels made out of cuts from a large sycamore tree, loaded with 5 bales of cotton and 4 and 5 yoke of oxen pulling it, going to Fort Smith to market. They had all mud roads and some of it Poteau bottom. There were two ferries or ferrys on Poteau and some times we had to ferry to get to Fort Smith. I left there in 1883 and went to the Cherokee Nation near Vinita. I can remember when there was only one house between Southwest City Mo. and Garry's ferry on Grand River and very few houses between Grand River and Vinita. It was all prairie and the finest of grass.
In the latter part of the eighties and fore part of the nineties they would ship train loads of cattle from Texas up in that country to range through the summer, old Texas longhorns. At that time there were thousands of prairie chickens in that part of the country, but I have not been through that part of the country since 1896. Guess man has spoiled the beauty of it all.
H.V. Jobe
People talk about the good days, and some say they would not go back to them and have to live again and go through life as we did them. Some say give us the good old days and I say amen.
In 1875 my father moved to the Choctaw Nation, what is now Leflore County Oklahoma. Father was a blacksmith and the few people that lived around, would come to his shop and getting acquainted they would come in Sunday afternoon and have games of some kind, pitching horseshoes or playing marbles, mostly Indians, some whites. The Indians were full-bloods and they would go through a whole evening without ever saying a word but they were continually laughing. The white man always had a gun strapped on him but you never heard a cross word from anyone.
There was a small settlement where we lived and then it was miles to another. If an Indian had a house near any road the door was always on the opposite side of the house from the road. There was deer and turkey and squirrels all over the country and any time you wanted to kill a deer or a turkey or get a mess of squirrels all you had to do was go out in the woods and get them. The woods was full of hogs, some were wild and never saw an ear of corn and would fight if you got them cornered. They would get fat in the fall on the acorns and if you wanted to kill a hog you could get an Indian to go with you and he would give you permission to kill as many as you wanted of unmarked hogs: I thought the best hog meat I ever ate.
We learned to talk some of their language, I could count to 100 in Choctaw but have forgotten most that I knew, can count to ten yet. Brother Mc could sit down and hold a conversation wilth a full-blood as easy as a white man. When an Indian was your friend you had a friend you could depend on. One old Indian was always talking about Massipi, he would say last year me caught a little cub bout so big, most big nuff. That was always his hobby, he was getting old and seemed childish and he would remember when he lived in Mississippi, he looked back as that was his home.
Good old days gone forever, but I would willingly live them again. I remember the time an Indian boy came to the shop. It was summer time and he was lying on the ground and had on a new pair of Brogan shoes. Father said to him, "How much did you give for your shoes?" He said "sixbits" and father said you got a cheap pair of shoes and the boy said, " and a dollah". He had paid $1.75 for them but that was the say he expressed it.
It was 30 miles to Fort Smith and the people had to haul their cotton there after they had it ginned. I have seen a wagon with the wheels made out of cuts from a large sycamore tree, loaded with 5 bales of cotton and 4 and 5 yoke of oxen pulling it, going to Fort Smith to market. They had all mud roads and some of it Poteau bottom. There were two ferries or ferrys on Poteau and some times we had to ferry to get to Fort Smith. I left there in 1883 and went to the Cherokee Nation near Vinita. I can remember when there was only one house between Southwest City Mo. and Garry's ferry on Grand River and very few houses between Grand River and Vinita. It was all prairie and the finest of grass.
In the latter part of the eighties and fore part of the nineties they would ship train loads of cattle from Texas up in that country to range through the summer, old Texas longhorns. At that time there were thousands of prairie chickens in that part of the country, but I have not been through that part of the country since 1896. Guess man has spoiled the beauty of it all.
H.V. Jobe
