Making music and listening to music have been important to Benders. In the 1930s, as they battled the drought, the dust devils, and the economic destruction of the Great Depression, they gathered in homes as my mother’s family did. To read about their singing with the Woods family, go to https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2016/07/softball-singing-and-skin-tests.html
In the little, wooden churches
or schoolhouses, the faithful met as many as three times a week. Sometimes they
met nightly for two weeks for revival services. Every service found those
quaint structures reverberating with the saints singing their hearts out –
usually in four-part harmony.
During that time, my maternal
grandparents, Calvin Callcayah and Gladys Rainey Smith, made friends with Oscar
and Celestine DeNoya Swanson. Celestine of Osage ancestry married Oscar, a down-to-earth
cowboy. Even though Oscar and Celestine earned revenue from quarterly
headrights, they fostered friendships with their neighbors.
Mrs. Swanson’s original
allotment of land was located just a few miles from the centennial Gates farm
on the banks of the Arkansas River. My paternal grandfather, Edmund Gates, Sr.,
toiled relentlessly during the 1930s just to feed his large family from the
less-than-100 acre farm. The Swansons showed lavish generosity and unimaginable kindness to
my grandparents in the 1940s.
The
Swansons and Mother’s family shared a love of southern gospel music. One of
Mother’s little black diary entries chronicled attending a concert at Perry.
Although Mother only gave bare-bones details, she recalled her family always rode with the Swansons. His car was always new and kept impeccable. For
this reason, if he wanted to smoke, Mr. Swanson pulled the car to the side of
the road and stepped out of the car for his smoke break. As a early teen, his
driving speed seemed inordinately slow to my mother.
Mr. Swanson so enjoyed the four-part harmony of quartets. He decided to host the Stamps Quartet, one of the premier men’s quartets in the southern gospel genre. He wanted to treat the Bend community, where he and Celestine had the ranch acquired through her allotment in the early 1900s, to a spectacular evening of the music he loved.
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| Stamps Quartet - standing: Alton Floyd, tenor, Roy Wheeler, lead, Lawrence Ivey, pianist seated: Wilkin Bacon, baritone and Frank Stamps, bass |
He paid the quartet based in
Texas the amount of $60. According to www.saving.org,
that amount would exceed $1000 in the late 1930s. Every Bender could attend
free of charge and enjoy an evening of close harmonies singing praise to the
Lord.
My grandparents lived on the
Jefferson place south of Mother’s home where she now lives. They agreed with
the Swansons to host the quartet for a meal prior to the concert. My grandma
thought Mrs. Swanson’s Salisbury steak recipe stood out above all others she
had sampled so Celestine prepared the main dish. Grandma fixed the rest of the meal. Mother recalled helping do
the dishes.
Mother and her friends, Betty Jo
and Lora Jean Woods could hardly believe one of their favorite quartets would
be performing in their local school building. One of the men, Wilkin Bacon, the
baritone, with his easy-going mannerism, quiet demeanor, good looks, and
Choctaw heritage made him a favorite of Lora Jean, Betty Jo, and Mother.
Isn’t this what makes a community
good? People following Biblical principles, working together, with each person doing what they can
for the betterment of the community. Paul wrote to the Roman believers this
admonition in Romans 12:16 -
Be sensitive to each other’s needs – don’t think
yourselves better than others but make humble people your friends. Don’t be
conceited.
Oh that every
community, whether rural or urban, lived out this verse! It is hard to imagine
what our nation’s communities would be like. It would be worth a try because
God’s ways are always right.
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