Harve Myers, A Bender Born 151 Years Ago

O. H. Myers, an early day Bender and the father of Harvey Myers, was born on December 18, 1866. What a perfect time to share some interesting facts about Mr. Myers and his family! I am indebted to two granddaughters of Mr. Myers - Kathleen Myers White and Robin Myers for family facts and photographs. 

Three of my four grandparents came to the Big Bend before 1912. Other people came into the peninsula created by the bend made by the Arkansas River. A courageous, hearty spirit was required to venture west of Ralston in those early days to discover the Big Bend. A telling question asked by my maternal grandfather, Calvin Callcayah Smith, may have aptly described the area. He inquired tongue-in-cheek when he first came in 1923, “How in the world did anyone ever find this place?”

One of those early day men was Harve Myers. He had been born in 1866 in Maple City, Kansas. Mr. Myers, as my mother referred to him, was a strong man.    
Men drawn by the appeal of the ruggedness of the Bend embraced Labor omnia vincit" the Latin phrase chosen by the state of Oklahoma for its motto. These men valued women with the same will to work and taught their children to live by "Work conquers all" - the English equivalent of the state motto.

O.H. Myers - used by permission
 from findagrave.com.

My mother, Bernyce Smith Gates, recalled the time a rumor circulated in the community that the little Sunday School that met each Sunday morning in the Belford Schoolhouse was going to be forcibly  “shut down.” She said, even though he never attended, Mr. Myers arrived early Sunday morning at the Belford School with his gun. He seated himself on the porch of the school entry and waited for whomever had threatened the small group of people who weekly taught the truths of the Bible. No one against the little Sunday School ever showed up.

My father, Edmund Gates, Jr., loved to tell how the old timers remembered how astounded the community was when the prim, young schoolteacher, Julia Elizabeth Rice, was courted and married by O. H. Myers, who 26 years older than she was. Community talk buzzed about the “old” man of 53 years marrying that young 27-year-old teacher! The marriage that was the talk of the Bend in 1920 lasted until Mr. Myers's death in 1948.

Julia and Harve Myers -used by
                 permission from the digital
collection of Robin Myers.

 The census records of 1920 revealed that Julia Rice boarded with my father’s maternal grandparents, Robert and Nettie Black, who lived at that time on the Mayse place. Their children  - Tommy, Ruby, and Edna -were being taught by Miss Rice since their ages were 13, 10, and 7 respectively.

My mother related this Myers/Rainey story to me in August of 2007:

The Accident

Shortly after Julia and O.H. “Harve” Myers were married in the latter part of the second decade in the 1900s, they rode to a Big Bend community dance with Gladys Rainey.   Gladys’s youngest sister, Emma, was also a passenger in the Hupmobile.  Julia, the young bride, was riding inside the vehicle with Emma as Gladys drove.  Harve was standing on the passenger side’s running board.  The rough, bumpy country roads of the Big Bend jarred the temperamental lights of the car, causing them to blink off.  At exactly that moment the vehicle approached a fork in the road.  Gladys froze and just held the wheel steady.  She blindly steered the car between the fork straight into a tree stump! 

Harve was thrown from the running board breaking his arm.  Gladys and Julia were shaken but unhurt.  Emma, who had only begrudgingly agreed to attend the dance, struck the windshield with her forehead.  An artery in her temple was severed.  She almost bled to death before arriving at the doctor’s home in Ralston.  Gladys recalled Emma, in a bloody state, being taken into the beautiful residence of the doctor. 

Harve recovered from his broken arm.  Emma carried the scar of the accident until her death at the age of 92.  Gladys and Julia forged a friendship that remained strong until their deaths.  Gladys, however, always used her horrible accident experience to admonish her granddaughters, Angie and Bernadean, to drive carefully!

The Bear Cake  - a remembrance of my own 

            I was only 13 years old in the spring of 1970, but when the shattering news came, I heard 
comments from my grandparents and parents, “She was such a beautiful girl” and “How shocking!”  The unbelievable news was that Gilda Pebble Myers Miller had been killed in a car accident.  (Grandma thought Mr. Myers was "partial" to Gilda. She was his youngest child - born when he was 72 years of age.) Even though I don’t remember ever meeting her, I knew many of her relatives.  When my grandparents were going to express their sympathy to her mother, Julia Myers who was our neighbor living just north of our farm, I tagged along when Grandma asked me to go.

          Mrs. Myers’s small farmhouse seemed extremely crowded mainly with relatives.  Mrs. Myers hugged Grandma.  I always thought Mrs. Myers had smiling eyes.  Even amidst her grief over the tragic death of her youngest daughter, she greeted us warmly.

           Jamison Bear, her deceased daughter’s first husband and father of her older children, had just come to Mrs. Myers’s home with a delicious-looking cake.  With a twinkle in her smiling eyes, she whispered to Grandmother, “Gladys, let’s go have some of this Bear cake.”  The kitchen was less crowded, and the two friends were able to share a few moments of solitude, grief, comforting conversation, and the Bear cake.

  

Within the last month, a friend living in a heavily populated urban area commented to me, “That continued connectedness of a small community gets lost where we live.”

My friend wasn’t bemoaning her lack of genuine friends or caring neighbors. Instead, she longed to have those years and years of shared stories and experiences that provided a foundation of trust, dependability, and comfort from those who loved her ancestors and loved her even before she had been born. 
          May we emulate our ancestors of yesteryear by maintaining time-honored principles of integrity, faith-based living, and a genuine concern for those around us. No other way could honor their legacy more.