Remembering Lewis Rainey on His 125th Birthday

This week will mark the 125^th birthday of Lewis Elbert Rainey. According to the records of my grandma, Gladys Rainey Smith, her older brother, Lewis, was born on December 10, 1894, in Terral, Indian Territory, just north of the Red River.

Four months before Lewis’s 6^th birthday, his family expanded with the birth of my grandma. At times, they appeared to have an adversarial relationship. Both exhibited strong wills, wickedly active minds, never-say-die work ethic and unyieldingly ensconced opinions. When they were kids, Lewis accused Grandma of ruining his nose when she hit him with a hammer. She related of similar incidents aimed her direction from her big brother.

The work ethic of Uncle Lewis and his wife, Aunt Pearl Bierman Rainey, knew no bounds. I recall as a preschooler how they spent several days helping us relocate to our new home in 1961. Mother recalled vividly Aunt Pearl carrying quart after quart of canned vegetables and fruit into the refurbished cellar at the newly built home.

Recently, Rick Rice brought a box of keepsakes he had received after our great aunt’s death. Aunt Emma Buckley had saved an article about Uncle Lewis and his older son, Leo. The article entitled Fertilizer and Good Farming Restore Land to Production written by Ramon Martin appeared in an issue of The Farmer Stockman in 1950. Since Aunt Emma, Grandma’s younger sister, resided and worked in Washington, D.C. at that time, I think Grandma may have mailed it to her.

Photo from the Article

The article indicated Uncle Lewis purchased a 160-acre “farmed-out” parcel of ground in 1932 in the middle of the Great Depression and the worst drought Oklahoma ever experienced. No one had much hope for productivity for him with this “worn-out” land. Within 22 years, he and his older son, Leo, had increased the land farmed to 1,134 acres. By 1950, they owned 320 acres and leased 814 acres.

Osage County agent, A. A. Sewell characterized Rainey’s operation as “a perfect example” of building “worn-out land…into highly productive land.” He included Uncle Lewis’s farm on every farm tour he led.

His remedy for reclaiming the land featured terrace building, planting Bermuda, and growing cowpeas and later planting sweet clover. Of course, his early years of reclamation predated mechanized farming in the Bend so he utilized teams of horses. He also applied tons of lime and rock phosphate as well as fertilizer.

I worked on this blog posting in conjunction with reading the book, Dirt into Soil by Gabe Brown, a North Dakota farmer who is a proponent of regenerative agriculture. As I read this quote from Uncle Lewis, I realized his strategies for successful farming mirror to some degree Brown’s 21^st century approach.

Cowpeas are the best soil builder for field lands. Bermuda is best for stopping erosion. I wouldn’t farm without both of these crops, Bermuda and cowpeas. I figure cowpeas are the cheapest fertilizer any farmer can plant.  – Lewis Rainey

In his later years, this self-made successful man was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. As his condition worsened, he and Aunt Pearl moved from the Bend to Pawnee. The summer prior to his death, my grandparents went almost daily to visit. Grandma and Grandpa even picked the abundant crop of peaches from the tree in their yard. Grandma helped Aunt Pearl process and freeze those delicious peaches while Grandpa visited with Uncle Lewis.

Grandma loved her brother dearly and admired what a success he had become. Yet she knew in his early adult years, he told her of "breaking up" a fight between two preachers. That incident turned him from valuing spiritual truths and most things associated with the church. That pained Grandma since she had embraced wholeheartedly her relationship with Jesus. She prayed faithfully for him.
 Almost coinciding with Uncle Lewis's last summer, Grandma found a modern translation of the New Testament. He accepted the copy of Good News for Modern Man when she gave it to him. Her decades of prayers were answered when one of the most respected farmers in the Bend and more important to her, her beloved older brother said, after a few days of reading, “Now I finally understand the Bible.”

Afterthoughts - Uncle Lewis’s grandson-in-law, Lester Anson, still lives in the Bend. Mark Anson, Uncle Lewis’s older great grandson continues the farming endeavor begun by his great grandfather. Numerous times, I told Ethan, Kelsey, Bailey, and Logan, the children of Dawn and Mark Anson, how much Uncle Lewis and Aunt Pearl would love them and revel in their accomplishments.

Bailey and Kelsey in 2010

Logan in 2010 

Ethan Anson, age 17 after winning 2010 Football State
Championship in Class A (I think this was left on Mother's
refrigerator so long it may have gotten water damage - but I
liked the photo and the memory.)