Rupert Crume, son of Fredrick Helander and Amy (Timmon) Crume. He married Goldie M. Gisbon on June 19, 1937 in Kay Co., Oklahoma. She is the daughter of Luther A.(82465574 and Lena Mae(82465573) Gisbon.

BIO of Rupert Crume's life,

He sold soft drinks from a one-ton pop truck that had no locks or security for the bottles and cases of soda. He said he lost nothing to pilferage...people "just sorta looked out for me and the pop truck." Glass bottles of strawberry, grape, lemon, creme soda, and root beer rode next to cases of Dr. Pepper on the open truck and were delivered to Osage and Washington County towns many remembered now mainly in books about ghost towns in Oklahoma. Many of these towns now claim larger populations in their cemeteries than they do along the streets where businesses, town buildings and houses once stood.

Rupert Ferinand Crume moved to Pawhuska from eastern New Mexico in 1918 with his widowed mother and four siblings. His mother ran a small cafe in Pawhuska and sent her two sons to the eight-grade Catholic school. After his eight-grade graduation, he returned to New Mexico to work for his uncle, a rodeo producer, before moving back to Pawhuska in the early 30"s. He began working for Live Bottling Company in 1932 and became known as "Doc" to his customers. In 1937 he married Goldie Mae Gibson, the daughter of Pawhusks pioneers Luther and Lena Gibson.

In 1942 Love Bottling Company moved to Bartlesville, and Route Supervisor Doc Crume and his family made the move also. Doc, Goldie, Ruth Marie, and Carl settled into a small frame house on Quapaw Avenue at the eastern edge of town, and Doc started spending more time serving Washington County towns like Dewey, Ramona, Vera, and Wann. His routes still included the Osage County towns of Hulah, Okesa, Avant, and Fairfax was shrinking, as was the oil exploration that had boomed in the teens and twenties.

Doc Crume left the Bottling Company in 1951 to work at the Phillips Research Center west of Bartesville. He had delivered bottles and cases of soft drinks to customers all over Osage and Washington Counties for nearly two decades. The days of entering small stores and cafes to be greeted by a scrawled sign asking, "Hey Doc, would you please take your money from the cash register and leave the cases next to the back door" had come to an end. Time were changing.

For the next forty years, whenever Crume, now known to many as "Shorty", walked through the door at Murphy's Steakhouse he would be greeted my Melvin "Murph" Murphy with "Hey Doc, c'mon in!" Crume had delivered Dr. Pepper and other products to Bartlesville's popular hamburger place since 1946. Murph would often tell Doc that some of the best times at Murphy's Steakhouse were back when the place had just four stools and a single counter...it was just simpler times.


1940 CENSUS: PAWHUSKA, OSAGE CO., OKLAHOMA

(1)Rupert Crume ~ Head, Age: 28, B: abt 1912, B.PL: New Mexico, Race: White, Married
(2)Goldie Crume ~ Wife, Age: 21, B: abt 1919, B.PL: Oklahoma, Married
(3)Ruth Marie Crume ~ Daughter, Age: 0, B: abt 1940, B.PL: Oklahoma, Race: White
(4)Celia Conklin ~ Housekeeper, Age: 25, B: abt 1915, B.PL: Iowa, Single