How the ravine looked to me in 1981
This is the story told to me by Birkle uncles and cousins at the family reunion I attended in the summer of 1981 in Oklahoma; plus excerpts from "A Pioneer History of Shattuck" published in 1970; plus anecdotes from my mother and my own recollections.
Daniel Birkle, my grandfather, was born in Russia on November 6, 1865, of German parents who had been promised land to cultivate by the Russian government if they moved there. Apparently, they died of cholera and Daniel was raised by foster parents by the name of Gloss. After serving in the Russian army for a few years he was discharged a lieutenant and married Mary Dorothy Olenburger in 1890. She was a German also born in Russia on Christmas Day, 1873.
Eight children were born of this union. Daniel's wife was with child, and Daniel, hoping to be free from cholera and reconscription into the Russian Army, sought and found a way to come to America. His family became part of a large exodus of German people who had vivid hopes of escaping to a better world.
During the three week voyage on the Atlantic their daughter, Olanda (Lillie), was born. They docked in New York in 1898 but took a long time to get through immigration at Ellis Island since they could speak no English.
Eventually, the Birkle family moved west, and settled near Avard, Oklahoma, where Joe was born. Shortly thereafter they moved north of Waynoka and Ben (my father) was born, in 1903. Daniel and his family completed naturalization and, in 1904, they crossed the Cimarron River and moved to Ellis County, settling four miles northwest of Shattuck where they had discovered a flowing spring surrounded by big cottonwood trees (since gone). The family lived in a dugout near the spring while building a permanent house nearby. They had acquired a team of horses to help them plus a bull and one cow.
They erected a two-room house of rock and mud on a nearby hill with 18-inch thick walls. When I was there I took pictures of the remaining wall pieces and found some tools along with (what I assumed to be) clay marbles.
The window and door frames were made of split logs and the frame for the roof was made of rough two-by-fours with a shingled roof. The spring supplied their water for some time until they dug a well with a horse-powered drill.
On June 9, 1905, Mary Dorothy, Daniel's wife, died in childbirth (age 32, 11 children). Her grave was on a little hill, now an open prairie.
With the passage of time, Daniel was married again to Katie Armbrister from north of Gage. To this union ten more children were born.
Only after the farm chores were done could the children play, fish in Pony Creek, and roam the hills (then with occasional groves of trees). The boys helped work the fields with horses and a walking plow, planters and "listers." They planted all of the sod with "hand jabbers" and raised kaffir corn and broomcorn. Laughingly, Joe reminisced, "Those boys were all broomcorn-pullin fools."
They trapped skunks, possums, civet cats and muskrats, selling the furs. A skunk hide would go for about thirty-five cents, although the ones that were mostly black would bring as much as six dollars. Coyote hides brought a dollar and badger hides only fifty cents. Joe and Mary, who worked for Mrs. Brown in Shattuck, gave their earnings to their father, helping to sustain the large family.
The Birkles depended mostly on their own labor for food. They always had a large garden, raising enough potatoes and onions to last all year. The boys shot game for food. They butchered hogs (meat and fat for lard) and calves, made wurst and preserved some meat by salting it down and hanging it on high trees (or on the windmill) to dry, where it would keep all winter. The girls dried fruit and canned wild plums, grapes, and jellies. The family made sauerkraut in ten-gallon crocks, and picked barrels of apples. They roasted wheat and ground it into a coffee-like drink.
About the only "store bought" things were sugar, salt, pepper, flour, matches and natural tobacco leaves. The trip to town was made in a lumber wagon pulled by two horses or mules, though later a two-seated wagon was used. Going to town was a big event for the children, as they went only two or three times a year.
There were Sunday "get-togethers" at the creek where families would bring food, eat together, swim and fish. Saturday night meant baths, using a large galvanized tub in the kitchen, where it was warm. Joe remembered the smell of bread cooked over a wood stove, the value of a nickel, home-made lye soap and "cracklins." After work was done evenings were full of laughter and play to the flicker of kerosene lamps. He referred to these as "the good old days."
The first of the Birkle children went to the Maddox school north of Shattuck, a four-mile walk each way along dusty or muddy roads on the prairie and through the patches of trees. They usually shared a syrup bucket, which served as a lunch pail, and jelly sandwiches. Early-on it was necessary that the older boys go to school only on alternate years, since they were needed at home. Ben, my father, mentioned that he became embarassed as a fourth grader because he was as big as the eigth grade boys, so he stopped going to school.
Joe built a wood house on the prairie near the original family home.
One of the stories I heard in 1981: "It began to get dark in the early afternoon. We could see a black curtain coming up from the ground on the prairie in the distance. We all climbed down into the shelter except for dad (Joe) who had to take care of some cows. There were terrible roaring and crashing noises as the wind got louder. We were scared. Suddenly the trap door opened, as if the wind was trying to tear it off, and we saw this dirt covered 'thing' stumbling down the ladder. It had red lines across its middle and smelled awful. Mother screamed but we realized it was our father who had fallen in the mud after he scratched himself running into a barbed-wire fence."
I entered Joe's house while I was in Oklahome, left just as it was when Joe's family had to abandon it. There were old newspapers and some linens in the drawers. Wires from a revolving wind vane on the roof generated enough direct current to listen to a radio in the evening. A drum was filled with "white gas" and small pipes leading into the house had mantels (like a camp lantern) on the ends which could be lit after pressure was built up with a hand pump. Outside the old swaybacked barn moaned and creaked in the breeze.
Soon all the trees, wheat fields, and streams disappeared. Great clouds of locusts devoured all the meager growing things. The family tried raising rabbits, then turkeys (which could feed on the locusts), but to no avail. Finally, they let the land go and moved on.
Ben traveled to California with an Olenburger cousin who was acquainted with some farmers near Banta, CA, where they found employment.
Meanwhile, my mother, Hazel, was helping raise her brother's children on a nearby farm in Manteca. Ben and Hazel met at a local Saturday night dance.
Hazel, born in Canada of English and Irish descent, had been living with her family (eight brothers and sisters) in a large house east of the crest of the Berkeley Hills in the San Francisco Bay area.
To get to work each day, she would walk down the hill and take a trolley to the ferryboat. From the landing in SF she walked to what was then one of the tallest buildings in town. At noontime she ate her lunch on the upper terrace from which she could see most of the bay and environs.
George, her oldest brother, needed help because of his wife's illness and Hazel became surrogate mother to four young children on a farm in the country. It was difficult, at first, for a city girl to become accustomed to farm life but she learned to cook, do laundry, raise chickens, etc. keeping George's family together.
I was born in the San Joaquin County Hospital in French Camp, CA, a few miles south of Stockton. Sadly, a twin brother died soon after birth. Since I was quite small they chose to keep me in the hospital for several extra days to fatten me up.
For a couple of years we lived on an island (Frank's Tract) in the Sacramento River where my father ran a tractor leveling and moving around the soil (mostly peat moss) which, apparently, contributed to his later ill health.
I heard stories of evening walks along the island levee when my dad would shoot pheasants for dinner using a 22 rifle, hitting them in the head so as not to spoil the meat. He would swim under the ferry slip and hook fish by hand, an activity that once rewarded us with a 75 lb. catfish. During grain harvest season my mom would cook for 20 to 30 men and serve them, buffet style, at a long table on the veranda overlooking the river.
The work ran out and my father got a job in the Golden Glow Brewery (now defunct) in Emeryville and we moved to Richmond, CA where we lived in a 3-room house at 348 19th St., one block from the train depot. There was a "bathroom" containing a tub and washstand off the bedroom, but the toilet was on the back porch, by the kitchen! Soon my brother (Dan) was born, and slept in a crib (later a small bed) in the same room as my parents. I had a daybed in the living room, which I had to "make" every morning.
I remember having to keep the coal bin filled on the back porch with chunks that were delivered in burlap sacks, walking three blocks to the landlady's house each month to deliver a $10 bill to pay the rent (keeping the money clutched tightly in my hand in my pocket), going to the depot across the railroad tracks (looking both ways) to take delivery of burlap-wrapped pheasants and ducks that my dad shipped home from hunting trips, my first bicycle with paper route, grass bomb fights with my friends in the lot next to the phone company, panic when getting my arm stuck for several minutes while trying to get free candy bars out of a machine, watching trains run over pebbles carefully placed on the railroad tracks, my first girl-kiss (in the dark) while in the garage at Patsy Donnelly's house (Her father was a police detective.), cutting off the belt loops on my levis and begging my mother not to wash the pants (though they could stand by themselves in the corner).
Even though I caused a few problems (It rained one day while I was in the 1st grade and I assumed school would close so I went home, walking about ten blocks by myself. Another year I kicked a ball over the school fence into a nearby yard and spent an hour looking for it, though I didn't tell anyone where I was going.), I successfully graduated from Grant School in 1946, after skipping part of the 4th grade.
Soon my dad was promoted to foreman in the brewery and, among other responsibilites, was in charge of keeping the beer lines, vats and tanks clean. One part of this process involved rolling glass marbles around inside the apparatus to pick up impurities, and occasionally he would bring home a few extra marbles. I remember an orange crate full of all kinds, colors and shapes of them (They weren't all spherical.) next to my day bed, earning me the envy of all my friends.
During World War II my dad was appointed "Block Air Raid Warden." His duties included patrolling the neighborhood during a simulated air raid to make sure no light leaked from house windows. When the practice siren sounded he would close our curtains and go out. One night, after the "All Clear" he returned accompanied by a very dark African American, also a warden. I remember thinking that this person was very lucky to be so hard to see at night and thus safer from bombing.
When I got out of Junior High I was 6'tall, had a ducktail hair cut, wore heavy shoes with a steel plate on each heel, and rolled cigarette packs up my tee-shirt sleeves under my leather aviator's jacket to hide them. Though I got good grades and participated successfully on the limited number of sports teams, (Outdoors we played on hard-packed dirt covered with small gravel, making a fall an automatic injury.), my parents became worried. Though I never actually committed a crime they were aware of some things my buddies did and heard stories. My dad decided that it would be better for my brother and me if we moved. He quit his job, traded our car for a truck and moved the family "back to the country," to help us avoid trouble. I hated to leave my friends and didn't like the idea at all. However, years later, looking back, I could see the wisdom of the move, and the courage my parents showed taking this step. Luckily, I was able to thank them before it was too late.
Our first stop was in Fresno where Sam, my father's oldest half-brother, had a farm a few miles east of town. I was a mid-year student, having graduated from the ninth grade in January, and filled in my schedule (after English, social studies, p.e. and math) with leathercraft, woodshop and art. I didn't like it there because it was hot, dusty (with no swamp cooler), and boring. I helped bring in money by picking grapes (crawling on the ground and reaching up to cut the grape clusters loose along with spiders and wasps and other assorted unknown creatures), and working in a shed cutting peaches in half (also removing the pits) so they could be placed on trays for drying. The shed was hot and filled with chattering women who could work much faster than I and thus make more money. Thank goodness my father decided to move north to Live Oak, CA, where he was acquainted with some farmers on whose land he had hunted.
At first my brother and I had to sleep in the barn next to the rice dryer because there was no room in the one-room cooler where my parents slept.
We bought a Ford truck and, though I had to work in the summer hauling beans, rice, peaches and hay (with one or two loads of chicken manure each year), I liked it there and felt important because I was bringing in a lot of money. My dad had hurt his back and couldn't pick up the sacks, boxes and bales so the first summer I lifted the load up to him while he arranged things on the truck. Starting the summer of my sophomore year I took the truck out, with a high-school buddy to help (who I paid) to make money. Being in charge developed my pride and the work developed my body.
During the summer we hauled different produce depending on what was ready to harvest. In peach season we removed the truck bed and clamped wooden pallets to the frame. This made a slim truck so we could drive into to orchards and load the boxes left by the pickers. My helper and I stacked the 60-pound full peach "lugs" 7 high on the so the unloading at the refrigeration plant could be accomplished by using fork lift machines to take off each full pallet.
We tried to arrange the load so that the inspectors at the plant, who decided how much each truckload was worth by looking in various lugs (judging the quality of the fruit), would see the best fruit. This made the grower happy, leading to an occasional tip and future work.
When beans were ready we used the regular truck bed and drove to the field where the harvesters were inexorably moving along the windrows ingesting the dry bean plants and spraying everything, chopped into shreds, (except the beans) out the back. Every few yards a bunch of 100 pounds sacks full of beans would be dumped in the dirt. I could put the truck in "granny" (the lowest possible gear) and it would creep slowly along the rows while I walked ahead to the next pile, arranging them to be lifted onto the truck bed. My helper would stack the sacks as we progressed. We had to take every sack out of the field every day so none would develop mold from the overnight dew. Sometimes, when the harvester had a good day, we hauled until after midnight, returning the next morning.
Hay bales, like bean sacks, were arranged in the field to be lifted up (125 pounds) onto the truck and arranged carefully, very straight rows (horizontally and vertically) because hay was usually hauled to a farm some distance away and the load had to be more stable. And, since hay bales were very heavy we had to stack the front of the load higher so we could move the bales from the high front to the top of the back of the load to make it level, later rather than trying to lift the bales them up over our heads. Rice hauling was like bean hauling, involving moving the sacks to a dryer, usually quite close. We couldn't just let the truck go, however, because of the uneven fields (rice paddies) and climbing in and out of the cab got old.
The job I hated the most occurred only once or twice a year when, between harvests, we were asked to haul a load of chicken manure. We always accepted the work because the pay was good ($300 per load) but inevitably, the day we chose to do it was windy. We put the wooden sides on the truck bed and covered it with a tarp, resulting in what looked like a large tub and drove to where the chicken farmer had piled the manure he and his tractor had scraped from under the roosts.
Using shovels, we scraped up white-green-yellow blobs of smelly stuff to throw over the sides slowly filling the bed. Easy enough, except as we catapulted each shovelful up a breeze would blow part of it back at us. By the time the truck was full so were our pockets, ears, and every other orifice open to entry. Of course, we couldn't breathe with our mouths open (using a handkerchief to cover our noses led to only temporary relief) and we had trouble hearing and seeing each other through the cloud of odoriferous dust. Goggles had to be cleaned often. At the beginning of my senior year we could afford to buy a house in town near the high school. My brother and I finally each had our own bedroom. We were on a half-acre with bearing walnut trees for added income and my mother had a place for a garden.
I enjoyed the small school (300 students) and had some success, getting good grades, playing on several sports teams (OK999996), appearing in plays (OK999997), and singing in the choir. The choir picture (OK999999) shows my brother at the other end of the same row i am in. The choir director was great and the class was very popular (enrolling almost the whole football team). We gave many performances around the northern Sacramento Valley.
Some of these performances were exchange assemblies with other schools. We would travel to their campuses to perform and they would reciprocate. One number featured me singing "Jamboree Jones," (a Johnny Mercer tune) while the rest of the choir was arranged in bleachers behind me commenting in unison along with my lines. After one of these assemblies, in Willows, CA, I was invited by a very pretty girl to ride around town in a brand new Chrysler convertible (from her father's dealership). There followed a few long-range dates but, since I had to drive more than an hour to get there in my 1934 Ford, the relationship couldn't last. She eventually, after graduating from Stanford, married the son of a very rich local farmer.
In my senior year I was elected student body president (OK999998), given a lifetime membership in the California Scholarship Federation, chosen as winner of the Bank of America award in science and mathematics and named "Outstanding Graduate of 1952." I thought I was hot stuff.
But, after I was awarded an alumni scholarship to UC Berkeley I quickly discovered the meaning of "a big frog in a little puddle." The outstanding graduate of Live Oak High School was in over his head. The students around me were smarter, more talented and had accomplished more than I. The only thing I had going for me was my height, which led to my being selected as guidon bearer in Air ROTC, and being able to skip "bonehead" English because I did well on the placement exam.
Dad paid $40 per month, and I worked 5 hours per week, for my room and board at a co-op (Oxford Hall) on the edge of the campus, and I walked up the hills to classes each day. At first my 5 hours of work consisted of cooking breakfast and occasionally delivering food to other halls. Then the coach of the co-op intramural teams dropped out of school and I got to take over his position. I really enjoyed coaching and decided to change my major to physical education with a minor in English. Unfortunately, I was not properly prepared for the University of California and decided to withdraw and come back later. My father wrote a letter stating that he didn't have enough money to continue paying my tuition after the scholarship ran out, so I received a temporary withdrawl.
I got married and we moved to Sacramento where we both could work for a couple of years until I earned enough to enroll at Sacramento State College, in the first freshman class at the new campus. Now I could succeed preparing for a teaching/coaching career. Unfortunately, we were not happy at home. Keith was born but that didn't compensate for my youthful arrogance and we divorced before I graduated.
My father's ill health caught up to him soon after and he died from lung problems caused by his work on the island and heavy smoking. (OK99997) shows dad and Keith playing on a hill before the illness struck. (OK9999996) shows my parents just before he was stricken and hospitalized.
My first teaching job was in Eureka, CA, where I got married to a woman I knew nothing about. She had 2 children, was glamorous, sexy and stoked my ego. We moved to Santa Clara where I got a job at Buchser High School as an English teacher/coach (football, basketball, baseball) for more money. (Also it was near where Keith was attending school.) My wife was working as a receptionist at a large construction firm and decided that the owner there (married and very rich) was more desirable than I, so I divorced her.
English teaching was OK, but I was bored with the silly (in my opinion) arguments over who could teach what (and when) so I enrolled in two National Science Foundation summer sessions at San Jose State College to get enough credits to convince the district office that I could teach math. I spent the next 30+ years teaching algebra, geometry, etc., and coaching in the Santa Clara Unified School District.
One of my fondest teaching memories is of football season in 1981, when I was the head football coach at Buchser. After earning a scholarship, Keith had graduated from Stanford, where he played as a defensive back on the football team. He was hired as my assistant and coached the defense for us that year. We won some games because the opponent couldn't score very many points against his defense. At the end of that year Buchser was a victim of declining enrollment and closed. I was shifted to a junior high school. Later I was able to transfer to another high school in the district and taught math and coached JV football until I retired in 1996.
Keith had married his high school sweetheart, Michelle, and they now have two great children, Mallory (a student at UC Santa Barbara) and Mathew (attending Granite Bay High and playing football). Keith is coaching football at the same school while he works full time in the business world.
My vacations were spent traveling to Baja California a few times before paved roads, driving to Alaska and taking the ferry back, exploring coastal beaches and deserts hunting for crystals and agates, taking classes, attending coaching clinics and making extra money.
Between marriages I shared a cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains with a fellow teacher(Chuck Martin)and on the weekends we would ride our motorcycles around the curvy, dangerous roads showing off. I finally got smart and sold the cycle after an elderly lady backed out of her driveway in front of me because she didn't see me. My brother had taught me how to dismount from a moving motorcycle without serious injury (only torn pants) so I survived, but that was enough.
One day at school a very attractive young lady passed me in the hall. She sat near me in the teacher's lunchroom (though she claimed later that she wanted to meet my roommate, Chuck, sitting next to me) and I worked up enough courage to talk to her. She was a substitute teacher in English and 12 years younger than I. Though I didn't feel much chance of success, I stopped by her room after school and asked if she would like to go with me to the basketball game that evening. Suprisingly, she accepted (though admitting later that she didn't know why) and this led to more than 20 years of marriage and the birth of Petrea, Garrett and Lindsey.