Person:Margaret Hussey (1)

Much of the historical reminiscences comes from stories recalled by her children, Clara, Jack, Kate, and Mae. I have intermingled the stories in an attempt to maintain a proper timeline.

She was named Margaret Inez. The Margaret was from her Aunt Margaret Catherine Capps whom she knew as Aunt Maggie. Many references to Inez are as Maggie Inez.

Inez Hussey was reared and grew to young womanhood west of Sayre. She met and married Ernest Harrington from Berlin, OK, in 1907. The young couple filed on land north of Berlin near the Indian Hills. They had two pretty blond girls. When the girls were very small, in about 1910 Ernest developed the dread disease tuberculosis. They went by covered wagon to New Mexico so Ernest could regain his health. However, the illness soon overcame Ernest and he died in 1912. Inez returned to the claim with her two girls. Her brother, Franzel Hussey, came to live with her and do the heavy work.

Inez met Oscar Leggitt at a dance at the John Taylor farm. Her sister Naomi recalled that Inez and Oscar had great natural musical and danced beautifully together. She married Oscar Leggitt in 1914. They lived for a while on the Pittsburg Ranch north of Berlin. They lived in a house made of sandstone and logs. It was one of the buildings surrounding the main ranch house. Later, they moved to a small two room house near Edenview.

See pictures of two land grants made to Inez Leggitt in 1917. One was for 160 acres in the northwest quarter of Section twenty-seven in Township twelve north of Range twenty-three west of the Indian Median, Oklahoma. The other was for the north half of the northwest quarter of the same Section.

In about 1920 the family lived in a half dugout with tar paper on the exposed lumber. A big rain had washed some of the tar paper from the boards and down into the dugout. Hazel woke up in the night and stepped out of bed onto water and drowned kittens. At that same place the girls got very sick, so Inez called Dr. Steel from Berlin. When the girls heard the horse and buggy coming, the big girls led the little ones out the washed hole in the wall and hid until they heard the buggy leaving, they were probably expected black draught (a popular purgative of the time that had the consistency of dried tea leaves and about a tablespoon was taken orally dry). Anyway, they all got well.

In the early 1920's, Oscar and Inez moved their growing family to some land they purchased from the Pittsburg Land Company. It was seven miles northwest of Berlin. Inez's brother, Elmer Hussey, died from mustard gas he had been exposed to during World War I. Inez received a portion of his insurance. She used the money to build a house and set out an orchard. The soil was sandy and very fertile. They built a big comfortable house with six rooms. While a Mr. Montgomery from Needmore was building the new house, Hazel and Clara hauled a load of lumber from Cheyenne in the wagon. The girls recall they were given a lot of responsibility at a very young age. They always did their best.

Before the house was finished, one day Inez told the girls to throw their mattress out of an upstairs window and take it to the new house. She then took the mattress inside and gave birth to Jack.

The girls recall that Inez was a school teacher and worked through the years with the county agent to learn new skills of farm work.

Oscar and Inez had a thing about varmints getting their chickens. One time Inez shot a hawk in the air with a chicken, through the screen door she killed the hawk.

Oscar raised cotton and broom corn to sell for a cash crop. He raised cane to make into molasses and feed for the stock. They remained on the farm until about 1950 when the last of the seven children was raised and gone.

For the next twenty or so years, Inez lived in a little house in Cheyenne, OK. She remained very active in the community until she was nearly 85. She would frequently contribute historical articles to the local newspapers.

She maintained her thing about varmits. A family story has it that a neighbor's bull would lean over her fence and eat Inez's garden. On day she got fed up with it. She emptied the shot out of shotgun shell and put salt rind in the casing. When she shot the bull with it, the two rinds made a perfect "X" on the bull's forehead and killed it dead away

When Inez died in 1980, this story circulated all over Cheyenne. Several years earlier in Cheyenne the gas was supplied by a very unreliable pipe line coming from the south. It was out of service a lot of the time one winter. Giles Peterson managed the repairs. Residents had to manage the best they could for some heat. Inez usually went to a neighbor's house. One day she met Giles Peterson on the street. She said, "When I die, should I go to hell, I hope you are furnishing the gas."

INEZ LEGGITT 24 May 1886 Feb 1980 73662 (Sayre, Beckham, OK ) (none specified) 440-64-8115 Oklahoma INEZ LEGGITT 24 May 1886 Feb 1980 (not specified) 73662 (Sayre, Beckham, OK ) 441-28-8946 Oklahoma

1. ↑ Roy Leggitt. Roy Leggitt. (Much of the information for immediate personal family lines is from personal knowledge. Some of the more distant lines are from research documented on his personal web page at http://www.angelfire.com/tx/royc.).
2. ↑ Roy Leggitt. Roy Leggitt. (Much of the information for immediate personal family lines is from personal knowledge. Some of the more distant lines are from research documented on his personal web page at http://www.angelfire.com/tx/royc.).
3. ↑ Roy Leggitt. Roy Leggitt. (Much of the information for immediate personal family lines is from personal knowledge. Some of the more distant lines are from research documented on his personal web page at http://www.angelfire.com/tx/royc.).
4. ↑ Roy Leggitt. Roy Leggitt. (Much of the information for immediate personal family lines is from personal knowledge. Some of the more distant lines are from research documented on his personal web page at http://www.angelfire.com/tx/royc.).
5.   Roy Leggitt. Roy Leggitt. (Much of the information for immediate personal family lines is from personal knowledge. Some of the more distant lines are from research documented on his personal web page at http://www.angelfire.com/tx/royc.).