The 90th Year of the Belford Bridge

As I completed this blog posting, I thought of how my life intersected so frequently with relatives. Before retiring from Woodland Elementary School, I taught Leo Rainey's great grandson, Ethan and his great granddaughter, Kelsie. To view a photograph of them with their mother, Dawn Anson and my father, go to:

 https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2016/11/honoring-veterans-at-woodland.html

Bernyce Smith Gates, my mother, celebrated her 93^rd birthday last week. A few photographs captured and documented one of her early memories. She and the Belford Bridge spanning the Arkansas River share this storied time.

A new bridge to connect Osage County on the west bank of the Arkansas River with the east bank situated in Pawnee County needed to be constructed following the flood of 1923. My father, Edmund Gates, Jr., remembered “The Big Flood.” It took out many bridges on the Arkansas River in this locale, including the ones in Kaw City, Ponca City, Belford, Ralston, and Blackburn.

Since Dad was four years old when the flood occurred, he recalled vividly when the Belford Bridge went out because he was fascinated by the ferry providing a way across the river.  Dick Wright and his boy, Clyde, ran the ferry boat.  Two little black mules pulled the ferry off the sand bar, then got on the ferry and the ferry was pulled across by a motor. Mr. Wright used the command “Pete Pete” to get the mules to pull the ferry onto or off the sand bar. The little ferry operated until the new bridge’s construction reached completion in 1927. Dad had thrilled at the adventure of three years of riding Dick Wright’s ferry every time he went with his family to Ralston.

In the photographs, only the bridge was younger than my mother. She recalled the cool day of their outing. Mother, along with her parents, rode with her uncle and aunt and her two cousins to survey the work done on the new bridge. 

Leo Rainey, Calvin Callcayah Smith holding Bernyce Smith, Johnie Rainey,
Lewis Rainey

         Mother, at around two years old, found herself in the company of her older cousins, Leo Lewis Rainey, age 9, and Johnie Rainey, age 7. The boys were sons of Lewis Ebert Rainey and Pearl Bierman Rainey. Lewis was the older brother of Gladys Rainey Smith, my maternal grandmother.

Mother’s family traveled a couple of miles from their home near where Cassie Fesler and her family lives now to get to Uncle Lewis and Aunt Pearl’s home. The seven of them wended along the dirt trails, the type of roads of the Bend in the late 1920s, until they reached the new bridge construction site.

Calvin Callcayah Smith, my maternal grandfather, and Uncle Lewis engaged in lively discussion about having cutting edge construction in their community. As they viewed the enormous piers, the two men admired the way the Green Beckman Company had merged various type trusses for this innovative 20^th century civil engineering feat.

My grandmother and Aunt Pearl most likely did not enjoy the jaunt as much as their men. In Grandma’s childhood, a family visited her family. An ornery daughter of the Rainey family’s guests who was older and bigger held Grandma underwater and sat on her. The experience traumatized Grandma. She retained a fear of water from that day forward. She and Aunt Pearl would have worried with their children being over the mighty Arkansas River. They surely mentioned to each other how easily one of those boys or little Bernyce might slip through the banisters plunging into the murky water below.

Gladys Rainey Smith, Bernyce Smith, my mother, Leo Rainey, Pearl Bierman
Rainey, and Johnie Rainey.

           As my father would say, I studied the photographs. Looking at the images of my grandparents, I became aware of their youthfulness for the first time. Grandpa and Uncle Lewis were aged 32, and Grandma was only 26 years of age, with Aunt Pearl merely one year older. They were young couples rearing their little families, rejoicing in the newest technology – the techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the accomplishment of objectives. Sometimes we boast secretly in all the advancements of our 21st century, not realizing our ancestors felt the same way about being on the cutting edge of progress in their day. Eerily, those who follow us in the 22nd century will scorn the primitive, archaic nature of our lives.

About five years after these photos were taken, my grandparents embraced Ecclesiastes 12:1 when as The Message states:

Honor and enjoy your Creator while you’re still young,

Before the years take their toll and your vigor wanes,

Before your vision dims and the world blurs

And the winter years keep you close to the fire.

They chose a new direction for their lives. Their choice to commit their lives to Jesus affected their desires. They began worshipping each week with others. Both daily read their Bibles. Their language changed. Some of their activities ceased. Their new lifestyle impacted Mother, who in turned influenced Dad, with Angie and me being recipients of a life honoring worship, work, and honesty.

Lord, give us eyes to see, a mind to understand, and a heart willing to honor You. May we find joy in You as our Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of our souls.