A Couple of Grandma’s Tried and True Friends From Her School Days
Gladys Vivian Rainey Smith, my maternal grandmother, came to the Bend over 100 years ago. She often said the grass was taller than a man on a horse when they arrived. Only hearty and tough, pioneer-type people ventured into the lower bend of the Arkansas River in Osage County of Oklahoma. The neighbors of William and Rosa Rainey were either gutsy, a bit “criminal,” trying to escape something or someone, or just downright enterprising.Grandma always began the early day stories about her family in the Big Bend by saying they lived on Ralph Dooley’s place. Some of the families in the west side of the Bend were the Harneys, the Biermans, the Buxbaums, the Days, and the Goads. The Myers family, the Miller family, and the Forbes families were also living in the Bend at that time. These families, along with many others, were listed in the 1910 United States Census for Bighill Township in Osage County. (My grandparents, Edmund Gates, Sr. and Mamie Irene Tripp, were also recorded in this census since they were both in the Big Bend even though they had not gotten married yet. Since Grandma Mamie Irene Tripp Gates and her family lived on a place not far from my mother's farm, she attended the Belford Grade School on the east side of the Bend.)*
The original Woodland schoolhouse was located in the timber, across the road to the west from the present home of Bob and Ruth Ann Hightower. Grandma only mentioned one teacher teaching the pupils in the days she attended. Later the student population increased enough to have three teachers when the new school building with three rooms was erected on the land now owned by Lester Anson.
The kids, from the west side of the Big Bend who attended the original Woodland School in 1912-1915, came from diverse backgrounds. Most of the parents had been born in other states or even other countries. However, many of the children in the 1910 census records were born in Oklahoma. In truth, they had been born in Indian Territory or Oklahoma Territory prior to Oklahoma’s statehood entry on November 16, 1907, when the two territories united.
Grandma told of one of her earliest teachers, a single, young man who was courting a young lady living in Pawhuska, the county seat of Osage County. With Osage County being the largest county in Oklahoma and the Big Bend community being in the extreme southwest of the county and Pawhuska being centrally located in the large county, the novice teacher had a horseback ride of around 45 miles – one way! Needless to say, the teacher experienced sleep deprivation and caught a power nap during the lengthy noon recesses. Here is where the story got more interesting.
The napping teacher left unsupervised the Woodland students ranging from 6 to 14 years of age. Grandma’s younger brother, Gene, the baby of the Rainey family, was one of the youngest students. He hated the sight of blood.
Bullies have also been a part of society, preying on the smaller, weaker, and more fearful. Such was the case at Woodland Grade School in the early days when the Rainey children attended. One of the older boys learned of Gene’s fear of blood and would bloody Gene’s nose on purpose to see him get upset and cry.
During one of the prolonged noon recesses, Gene’s nose was bloodied by the schoolyard bully. As soon as Grandma heard the bully bragging about making Gene cry, though she was near the door of the schoolhouse, she never thought of reporting the incident to the sleeping educator. Instead, Grandma, the fearless defender of the intimidated and maligned, especially her baby brother, reached deftly inside the school doorway and grabbed the baseball bat from its storage spot. She picked up the bat stealthily, but quickly, and as Grandpa would say, “coldcocked” the perpetrator (according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the meaning of “coldcock” is “to knock out someone with a hard punch”). As the older student began to regain consciousness, Grandma saw his hand inch toward a rock within his grasp, she tapped his hand with the bat, and said, “Don’t even think about it!” He withdrew his hand immediately. About that time, the dozing teacher roused, rang the bell, and began the afternoon instruction. The lessons proceeded with no interruptions.
When Grandma moved to the Bend with her family from Konawa, her strong-willed, tenacious spirit bonded instantly with Maud Harney, a girl with a similar personality. Their friendship strengthened and supported both girls through their adolescent years. Maud was sandwiched between three big, teenage brothers and two younger brothers. Grandma characterized her close friend as sturdy and tough, made so by growing up with her five rowdy brothers.
At the end of the school day, the students headed onto the sandy roads to their little pioneer-type homes. Grandma was riding on a horse behind her dear friend, Maud. The two friends recounted the day of learning as they laughed and enjoyed the leisure ride south to their homes as the gentle pony plodded through the mere trail of a road. Suddenly, an enormous club shot out of the dense timber with the force of a speeding bullet, knocking both girls off the horse into the sand. Grandma said Maud took control.
Maud sat flat in the sand, doubled up her fists, and yelled, “Come on out, you cowards. I’ll fight you and beat you up from right here!” No one emerged from the wooded area to accept her challenge. Grandma never mentioned that Gene was bullied again.
Sometimes we glorify the “good old days” beyond what they actually were. Such was the case of some of the neighbors of the Rainey family. Even by today’s standards, this neighbor family would have been categorized as “dysfunctional.”
The husband drank alcohol and would get angry at his wife. He was known to have shot the eyes out of his wife’s portraits. Each time his drinking turned threatening, his little stepdaughter jumped on her pony and rode like the wind to the Rainey house. She skidded her horse to a stop and leaped off the animal. With her little heart pounding furiously, she fled into the Rainey home and hid hurriedly under a bed. Apparently, her stepfather waxed poetic when drinking and would compose rhymes about the distance from their home to Bill Rainey’s house after he arrived there. Grandma’s family always took in “Babe” and provided the friend of my grandma sanctuary from a scary domestic situation. Ironically, Babe’s stepfather never seemed to become angry with Great-grandpa Bill Rainey. Somehow, maybe he knew his neighbors were protecting him from actions he would later regret.
My own father said that Benders had a strong sense of right and wrong. Grandma Smith said in the early days of the Bend, the men upheld the law and protected their families themselves. Probably Babe's stepfather realized if he had harmed her, justice, as interpreted from the point of view of the Benders, would have been administered swiftly right on the spot. They didn't bother contacting Pawhuska in those days!
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| This photo appeared on a photographic postcard, which was quite popular in the early 1900s. It was in my grandmother's photograph collection. On the back was written in pencil, "Your old friend and school mate - Babe Petrie." She addressed it to "Miss Gladys Rainey." |
I love reading your blogs, Bernadean.
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