MySource:Kminnemeyer/Interview of Edith Matilda Smear Minnemeyer

Date: ABT 1964

Reference number: Type: Interview

CREA: Date: 14 May 2011 Time: 13:28:10

NOTE: The Homestead Act of 1862 and later homestead legislation provided the mechanism for transferring federal land to private ownership. The act was applied in Oklahoma after 1889. According to statue, a citizen over twenty-one years of age and head of a family could claim up to 160 acres of surveyed, unclaimed public domain. Title to the land could be established after the homesteader resided on the land for five years, made certain improvements, and paid claim registration fees. After the Civil War, treaties between American Indian nations and the U.S. government rearranged tribal holdings in Indian Territory. Later negotiations removed millions of acres from Native control and placed the land in the public domain. By 1905 all surplus Indian holdings in present Oklahoma had been placed in the public domain and opened to settlement. In 1907 Oklahoma became a state. The following was transcribed from an informal "interview" of Edith by Costa Joseph Minnemeyer. I sat with them during the discussion. My additions and assumptions are in parentheses.

    "Was 16 years old October 7, 1905.  Married April 11, 1906.  Left for Indian Territory (Oklahoma "Panhandle" area) on September 4, 1906.  Hollis (Charles Hollis Minnemeyer) born in February 1907.
    Men voted for Statehood.  Women not voting yet.
    Mom's (Edith) home was one of the voting places.
    Government advertised Indian territory for homesteading.
    Homesteader's trains made up with reduced transportation rates.
    You could homestead 1/4 section which was 160 acres and was 1/2 mile square.
    You could live on the land for two years and then buy it for $1.25 an acre, or live on it for five years and it was then deeded to you by the government at no cost.
    Guides took you to see the sections and you could pick out the one you wanted if it had not already been selected by someone else.
    Service men could subtract their service years from the required five years
    Grandpa Minnemeyer (probably Charles Henry Minnemeyer) and Uncle Hick Fletcher (probably Edith's maternal Uncle) went out in 1905 and chose their sections.
    Uncle Hick built his dugout in 1905.  Mom and Dad (Costa and Edith) lived in it until their house was built after they got there.
    Mom (Edith) had never been out of the state (Indiana) nor had ever been away from her mother.  They left Ben Davis at 10:00 at night, rode interurban to Indianapolis, walked from interurban station, now the bus station or Blue Cross bulding, to the Union station carrying their suitcases.
    Their team of mules, household goods and tools, including sod plough, wagon, etc., had already been shipped to Texoma, Oklahoma.  At Texoma, wooden hoops were addd to the wagon, over which was stretched heavy canvas, making the wagon into a prairie schooner.  The wagon seat was of the spring type.  There was a curtain between the driver and the rest of the wagon affording some privacy.
    It was 40 miles north west from Texoma to their chosen section.
    Coal was $10.00 per ton.
    When leaving she knew she was pregnant but wasn't worried or afraid.  It was planned that Grandma (Laura Fletcher Smear) would go out at Christmas.
    They were on the coach train for four days and four nights.  Changed trains at St. Louis and Kansas City.  The Kansas City station was plastered with signs to beware of indians and pick pockets.
    Had morning sickness every morning on the way.
    Arrived at Texoma in evening.  It was a clapboard town with only one row of buildings, unpainted, weathered, board walks, and dirt street.
    The hotel rooms were formed by 2 by 4's with thin muslin stretched between.  The toilet was an outhouse out behind the hotel.  Bath facilities consisted of a washbasin and a pitcher of water on a bench just outside the hotel's back door.  There were no towels.
    The flat land stretched as far as the eye could see, unbroken by trees or even scrub brush.  The only living thing was the short, curly buffalo grass and even it looked brown and dead.
    They bought their grocery supplies and loaded their wagon.  Everyone in town was there to watch them leave, shouting words of good bye and encouragement.
    From twenty five to thirty miles apart, the government had built sod houses to be used by travelers as way or rest stations.  They were built entirely underground, with steps down and the only thing they contained were wooden bunks built into the wall.
    The government also dug deep wells pumped by windmills, and put in tanks for travelers to water their stock.
    Four families went together and dug their well on John Wilson's property.  They pooled their finances and had Dad (Costa) write the order to Sears Roebuck for their windmill.  As a premium for the order, Sears sent Mom (Edith) a small gold woman's watch.
    The four families built their houses on the corner of their respective sections so that they would be close together.
    Uncle Hick's house was a dugout, boarded from the floor to the top of the ground.  It was just one big room.  In it was a table, regular bed, a folding bed, and four chairs.  It had a small "monkey" stove which was somewhat like a four burner laundry stove.  The baking oven was a metal drum which was placed between two joints of the stove pipe.  The interior of the oven was enclosed within a metal baffle plate containing a flat bottom rack.  This permitted the smoke and heat to circulate around the baking part of the oven without actually getting to the food.
    They had left Texoma early in the morning and arrived home late that same night.  The had covered fourty miles, and had stopped only once at a government water station to feed and water their mules and to eat their lunch.
    They had passed one small ranch which had a few cattle in a corral and then late in the afternoon they had glimpsed, far in the distance, the loping form of a gray wolf.
    When they arrived the only thing on their mind was rest.
    The biggest impression of the entire trip was the indian and pick pocket warning signs at the Kansas City station."