Person:Cleda Jarboe (1)

This is a brief history of the Jarboe family by Cleda Jarboe Rooker:

My mother, Dora Smith, married my daddy, John Francis Jarboe, on March 1, 1901 at Harrah, Oklahoma. She was 17 and my father almost 24. Papa lived in Woodward and working for York Key department store when they became engaged.

To go back a bit, Papa was born in Wellington, Kansas. He had a sister named Emma, a brother, Will, and a brother, Tom. My father, John, was the baby. When he was 2 his mother died and his father, William Louise Jarboe soon married again. When his father heard about the land run in Oklahoma they, their father, Will, Tom and John decided to take part. My father was 11 years old. It was all very exciting and grandpa Jarboe got a 160 acre plot on Hog Creek. Uncle Will got 160 acres near what is now Newalla, and his future wife was also in hte run. A young widow, Josephine Hargrove, with two children staked land adjoining Uncle Will's land. They fell in love and married. Will built a log house there and shortly after they married her daughter Brooky died. That just left Roy, her only son. She and Uncle Roy had rwins, a boy, Willie, and a girl, Thelma, whom he called Punch and Judy. They also later had a little boy named Jack. Both Judy and Jack died of diptheria within a week of each other, she 7 and Jack 5. It was sad. I loved to visit Aunt Josie and Uncle Will. She was a wonderful cook and the both loved us children dearly. Uncle Will had lost a hand and whenever I asked what happened to his hand, he would say, "A little girl talked it off."

Uncle Tom lived to be 102 years old. Uncle Will died of a heart attack at 57. Aunt Emma was 96. My father 81.

Grandpa Jarboe moved his family to Hog Creek after the run, which is near Pink, Oklahoma, rather close to Harman. There he put out a bigg vineyard and eventually made wine for sale, long before Prohibition. It was while Papa was visiting his folks that he met my mother. It came about like this:

Uncle Will was county assessor and he came to assess Grandpa Smith's farm and a bad storm came up and they all went into the cellar. Uncle Will thought my mother, Dora, 15, was pretty and cute with her curly hair, brown eyes and pretty smile. He told her he had a younger brother he'd like her to meet when he came on his next visit from Woodward. In the summer who should ride up in a horse and buggy but my Dad all dressed up in a tailor made suit and my mother opened the door and asked him in. As he came in, Mother, who was a cutup, was putting on a show behind his back because he was so dressed up. When he asked for Mrs Smith, he said his name was John Jarboe, then it dawned on Mother this was the guy Uncle Will spoke about.

The liked each other from the start and were married when she was 17. He had a nice little house built and furnished when the arrived in Woodward. I was born December 8, 1901 and my brother Paul 18 months after. Paul joined the Navy and died in Hawaii in 1924. Don was 5 years younger. When he was almost 14 Mother had my sister. Papa had built on to our house in Woodward until he wee had seven rooms and a bath with a stool with a sting you pulled to trip the water. We had water in the kitchen sink, a parlour and a mission room, three bedrooms, and a formal dining room. Papa had a whole block in town with cement sidewalks and a storm cellar. Wee had a cow there too. Years later the house was destroyed in the bad Woodward tornado.

But Papa's health got bad working indoors for fourteen years. When he was 18 he studied law under Temple Houston, a brother of Sam Houston, governor of Texas, but never became a lawyer. Instead he quit the store and took his family to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to take the baths to get back on his feet. Mama was pregnant with my brother Don and Papa thought she should take a course of baths too. Before they left Papa went into the colored part of Hot Springs to get a colored girl to shower with us to help Mama. He found an eighteen year old girl named Mattie McKarl and promised her mother that when he did not need her he would pay her way back to Hot Springs. They were very poor and Dad would buy her clothes and she would have room and board as long as we needed her. When we got on the train Mattie help Mama with Paul. I was not quite six and Paul four. When we got to Oklahoma Mattie had to go to the Jim Crow Car and we did not see Mattie until we arrived in Shawnee. This was August of 1907. There were lots of blanket Indians on the street and I felt afraid. Daddy had bought ten acres in the old John Bradley addition north east of Shawnee two miles from Main Street and he engaged a new contractor who had recently moved tot Shawnee from Tennessee to build our house and barn. The contractor was G.P. Carr, a longtime resident of Shawnee in later years. Ours was the first house he built in Shawnee after moveing here from Tennessee. He had a young wife and teo little boys, one a baby as I recall.

He built a nice story and a half house. It had three bedrooms upstairsm a kitchen both dining room and living room downstairs and a barn painted red with white slats over the wall joints. The house was white with front porches on the north and east and a back porch with a cistern on it. About two years after that G.P. Carr came out in a brand new car and took us all for a ride. The first time I ever road in a car was then and it was wonderful.

Dad plated a big vineyard and put out fruit trees, berries and shrubery of all sorts and a big garden. We built a chicken house. Papa bought a black horse named Collie and a cow named Peach, also a surrey with a fringe on top. It had coal oil lights and was upholstered in a brown fabric. It was beautiful. My brother and I went to Grove School. My first teacher was Belva Grubbs, the second grade was Miss Sherric and third was Mammie Munson. Her father was the principal.

My little brother, watching some boys wrestling, got kicked in the mouth and got his front teeth almost knocked out. He was crying and bleeding and the teacher said "Wait until noon" and she got someone to take him home. But I bundled him up and put my velvet hood on him and a scarf over his mouth and we cut across the fields to our home. My mother took him immediately to a doctor dentist and he had to take his teeth out. He had to eat soup through a straw for a long time.

We sent Mattie back to Arkansas after two years. We lived in Shawnee for six years until 1913. I remember the old Revel Hotel, the Santa Fe Depot, the old Mamoth department store, the Majestic theater and the Lyric where I sang Harry Marry Carry with Dorothy Sadoris. I was dressed as a boy on our first amature night. After that we were on every Friday night with the Bullard Sisters, Alice and Midge. Joe Detimore always dressed as a girl with a wig on. Tate McGee manned the curtain. If we got first we were paid $2.00, second was $1.00, third was fifty cents. The manager would hold his hands over each contestant's head. The one getting the most applause got first and got to go to the theater in the city. We sang and danced there several times. My mother should have been an actress.

We sold out and moved to California and we sang on the stage in San Diego a number of times. The sailors would throw money onto the stage to us and the theater paid us for each performance. We played in Eureka, Arcata, Fresno, Blue Lake and Samora.

Papa got in bad health again and we moved back to Oklahoma in May 1915. My brother and I opened the season ar the Old Savoy theather in Shawnee.

It was back here in Oklahoma that I met and married Roy Rooker, a farm boy of the Dale Community. I met him at Austin and Johnnie Lee Henson's wedding dance in Newalla. I was fourteen and he was twenty in April of 1916. We married after he returned from World War I. I was eighteen and he was twentyfour, on January 4, 1920.

Roy and I moved on one of Daddy Rookers farmed 160 acres. He and his brother, John, farmed together the first year. That was the year the bottom fell out of the cotton price. They had put in 110 acres of cotton and corn. Everything looked so good. They got the prize bale but after the second bale the price went way down. Finally the boys decided to store their cotton and they piled the bales on Daddy Rooker's huge lawn. It looked like a compress.

Four year after we sold our cotton for seven cents a pound. The bole weavel infested the cotton and some seed cotton they had stored in the barn before the weavels infested we sold at a premium price. Our first baby was born on Christmas Day 1920. We named him Billy Roy, in September 1922 we had a daughter, Marcille. The children were healthy. I cooked for a lot of the hired hands. We also raised hogs and turkeys and chickens and had a few head of cattle. We raised our own meat and garden stuff. I canned some but after the presure cookers were available I canned everything I could, eventually canning 500 a year of meat, fruit and vegetables.

Mother Rooker died in September 1925 and we moved into the big house to look after Daddy Rooker. Daddy Rooker gave all his sons $1,000 when they bought a home. In 1923, we bought the Old Peek place a mile west of the Daddy Rooker place and moved there in 1924. We later moved in with Daddy Rooker in 1925. Roy and I were converted during a revival at the Dale Baptist Church.

In 1928, we built a new home in the 40 acre farm we owned and moved in September 25, 1928. Our third baby was born three weeks later on October 17, 1928. Betty Jo is now Mrs Merle Dinkins and lives in Shawnee. Twenty three months later on September 17, 1930 we had another son, Timothy Paul.

They all attended O.B.U. Billy was there three years and when World War II came along he had to join the air corp. He became a pilot and a first seargent and lieutenant and flew 35 missions over France and Germany in a Flying Fortress B-17. He had a job awaiting him when he got his discharge with Pan American airways as a pilot. He flew all over the world for 25 1/2 years. Tim, ten years younger, flew an all weather intercept as a radar man in Korea and after a career of 22 years he was mustered out with a rank of Lieutenent Colonel. In 1954 he married Shirley Ann Young of Ada, Oklahoma. Billy married Betty Ann Gully of Shawnee, Oklahoma in August of 1944. Marcille married Armond Hinkle in March 1944. He flew for Capital Airlines out of Washington, D.C. Betty married Merle Dinkins of Shawnee. Billy and Betty Ann have three sons, Douglas, Ricky and Randy who are all married. Billy has retired and lives near Ada, Oklahoma. Marcille and Armond have two children, Terry Lee and Melody Kay, both married and living in Saint Louis, Missouri. Tim and Shirley have two married daughters, Gail nad Sharon who live in Tucson, Arizon.

Betty and Merle Dinkins live in Shawnee and have a son, Larry, and daughter, Marsha. Both are married. Larry is a mimssionary in Thailand. He and his wife Paula have two sons and a baby daughter. Marsha married John Waldo of Shawnee and now lives in Nickol Hills, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Thay have a son Jack seven years old and a daughter four yeats old.

Roy and Cleda have four children and nine grandchildren and fifteen great grandchildren. We have been married for 65 1/2 years. We love the Lord and all love each other. Cleda is 83 1/2 and Roy will be 90 September 24.

We've had a wonderful life, not all roses but plenty of blessings as the years went by. Our children have been our biggest blessing and our love for each other that grows sweeter as we near the end.