I Am Jo, Jo Am I

By Margaret Jo Holcomb Hill Snyder

It started as a suggestion from our grief group leader to start journaling. It was formed when
I joined a small writing group in Beverlys living room and we got the assignment to write
Who are you now? and then to write Who were you before that? and Who were you......... and
fi fteen before thats later I had the outline of this book. Th e telling became compelling as I worked
over the four years and chronicled my story. I tell it because it affi rms for me who I am and maybe
later generations will want to know something of where they came from.
In the beginning my grandparents came into Oklahoma when it was Indian Territory and participated
in the journey to statehood. Th e changes that took place between the time my mother was born in
1898 and when she died one hundred and fi ve years later are hard to imagine. She lived in three
centuries and this story lives in these three centuries.
Being a mother and enjoying two sons that are a joy to me to this day is a rich part of my life story
and this part of my telling is a joy to remember. Th e love of two gifted men blessed my tale and
fi lls me with appreciation for both of them. Th e three children from the second marriage are an
amazing gift. What it meant to be a woman, wife and mother changed and morphed as I grew from
childhood to an eighty- eight year old woman and I had the opportunity to work with women of
the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) as we began to struggle with issues that impacted our
homes, schools, churches and political institutions.
Retirement bloomed into ten great years exploring the United States and Canada and also helping
the fi ve children that now form my family. Many hours of helping to redo, remodel and restore
helped build relationships and gave me many special memories.
Th is story of I am Jo/Jo am I is one womans story of life, love, learning and living toward the end.
I am still doing it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781503588752

Margaret Jo Holcomb Hill Snyder

I was born as the “Roaring Twenties” fell into the “Great Depression” in a small county seat railroad town just twenty years after Oklahoma became a state. My dad was Superintendent of Schools and mother stayed at home to raise my brother and I. As the depression sucked the life out of many families we moved on up the ladder and dad became president of Northeastern Oklahoma Junior College in Miami, Oklahoma. Those who had decent incomes could live pretty well and even though we lived in the new girls dorm instead of a President’s Mansion it was a good time for me. This time in Oklahoma history good jobs in education were political and after another four year legislative cycle we moved to Putnam City, Oklahoma, the largest consolidated school in the state, where I spent the dust bowl days and childhood. Our move to Elk City in western Oklahoma rounded out my “living across Oklahoma” experience. Here I left for college, fell in love and married. My dad said “get a Home Economics degree and you will be prepared to be a wife and mother and it will be security if that is interrupted.” It was interrupted after twenty three years when Virgil died. Joy did returned after much sorrow and I had twenty years of a career I loved and a wonderful second marriage full of fun and travel, my child rearing years were done. I was about four years behind “the Greatest Generation” and both my husbands were in its glory. My cohorts were born after the depression and came of age after World War II, we were “in between,” but I was on the cusp of the Women’s Movement and it was a great run.

Book preview

I AM JO, JO AM I

Margaret Jo Holcomb Hill Snyder

Copyright © 2016 by Margaret Jo Holcomb Hill Snyder. 704410

Library of Congress Control Number:    2015911834

ISBN:      Softcover            978-1-5035-8874-5

                Hardcover           978-1-5035-8873-8

                EBook                 978-1-5035-8875-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 03/14/2016

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 Matthews Heritage

Chapter 3 Holcomb Heritage

Chapter 4 Life In Sallisaw

Chapter 5 Stigler, Oklahoma 1926 To 1931

Chapter 6 Miami, Oklahoma 1932 To 1936

Chapter 7 Putnam City, 1936 To 1940

Chapter 8 Elk City, 1940 To 1948

Chapter 9 College Years, 1945 To 1949

Chapter 10 Virgil Hill And Jo Holcomb

Chapter 11 Career In Christian Church, 1971 To 1989

Chapter 12 Don And Jo And Jo And Don

Chapter 13 Fun With Family

Chapter 14 Remodeling Restoring Redoing Working For Fun With Our Kids

Chapter 15 Really Big Trip July 24 To December 20, 1990

Chapter 16 Joy And Sorrow, 2004 To 2010

Chapter 17 Toward The End

Chapter 1

I AM JO, JO AM I I was born September 25, 1927 in Stigler, Oklahoma toward the end of a decade of dramatic change. For the first time more people lived in cities than on farms, the nation’s total wealth more than doubled in these seven years of the twenties and this swept many Americans into an unfamiliar consumer society. The New Woman was a symbol of the Roaring Twenties, the flapper with bobbed hair and short skirts. They would vote at last and birth-control was becoming available, but in reality, many young women in the 1920’s in Oklahoma did none of these things. For a lot of people the 20’s brought more conflict than celebration.

Founded in 1889 Stigler was about 20 miles south of Sallisaw, OK where my mother grew up. When Midland Valley Railroad added Stigler to its group of railroad towns it began to grow and at statehood in 1907 Stigler won a competition with neighboring towns to become the county seat of Haskell County. I am grateful to have spent my first four years in this small town of about 1,800 people. I could skate a block down the sidewalk to Dr. Turner’s house, the doctor who delivered me and my brother. The nurse who saved my brother’s life when he ate green apples lived across the street and beyond her house you could see meadows and the hills that rolled down to their edge. Caroline and Bill Hall were about the same age as John Ed and I and lived catty cornered across the street. The Halls had a great attic room where we spent many hours playing. I grew up hearing how I was carried in a basket to church as an infant and was set on the front row. Even now this 87 year old woman sits on the front row at church.

1927 is pictured as a simpler time and in many ways it was but there were shadows on the horizon. Stalin became dictator of Russia and the US wont sign the League of Nations disarmament treaty. In my world Daddy has a big truck load of sand dumped not far from the back door and it is joy. Our house is on the corner on a quarter of a city block. Just over the fence to our south is an orchard and climbing up our mountain of sand we could see a big wide world.

In 1927 Lindbergh flies across the Atlantic Ocean and Ford stops making the Model T and the Model A begins, but what I remember is the big tree in our front yard where I would climb up high and my brother couldn’t reach me. This is the tree I fell out of while trying to get my skate key uncaught and broke my arm. I don’t have any memory of hearing a radio but it is the year Columbia Broadcasting system goes on the air and Babe Ruth hit a record 60th home run of the season. The first telephone I remember was at my Grandparent’s house in Sallisaw. There definitely was no media overload.

My mother was 29 and my dad was 27 when I was born. They had grown up on the frontier and in the backwaters of cultural change and in their communities they were fairly old to be getting married. My dad was ambitious and my mother was compliant. As a young woman growing up she was more independent. She traveled to New York City, broke her engagement to a guy after they had received wedding presents and had a great time with her female friends.

My generation is called The Silent Generation, not The Great Generation. I was born after the 20’s had done their transforming stroke and before the Depression defined an era. Circumstances molded the time to shield me from harsh memories of the Depression. I don’t remember any family tales of deprivation. At the height of the depression Dad became President of Northeastern Oklahoma Junior College in Miami, OK. I attended Kindergarten through fourth grade in Miami and life on Avenue E in the small two story brick house was safe and unbounded. The Neosho River was a couple of blocks one way and the grade school two blocks another direction. A little neighborhood Mom and Pop store where we got candy was in the next block.

We moved to a house a couple of blocks away for a short while. The back porch was one level above ground and I remember beautiful blue Larkspur covered the back yard that spring. Several football players from the college stayed in our the downstairs and mother fed them at our dining table. In the fall we moved again to the new dormitory at the college. We had two rooms, Mother and Dad in one and John Ed and I in the other. I found a new friend in the football coach’s daughter. Patty, John Ed and I spent hours playing in a beautiful creek just off the campus. The crystal water rolled over small rocks and we played Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe, building dams and exploring the small creatures caught in our lakes. We had a lot of freedom to roam and just come home when we were ready. I loved Miami and was sad when dad lost that political job and we had to move, but I was ready for the new adventure. Mother and John Ed always said they didn’t want to leave what they knew.

In 1935 my father became Superintendent of Putnam City Consolidated Schools, a very large school system near Oklahoma City. We moved into a frame bungalow on an acreage a couple of blocks from the school. I loved school, especially reading and memorizing poetry. We lived in Putnam City between 1931 and 1938 and I enjoyed the little Christian Church where I had friends. Mother didn’t have a car and one of the women in the church took me to the parties and activities at the church.

These were days of the Depression but Dad still had a good job. I recently watched a documentary by Ken Burns about the Dust Bowl and and the only images I had of that time was Dad opening the window on the south of our house to let air in and then hanging wet towels in the opening to filter dust.

In 1939 we moved to Elk City, OK. where Dad became the Superintendent of Schools. It was a step down financially even though it was still a good position. I was aware of the money crunch when Dad had to borrow from Mr. Thurmond, a banker in our church. The war economy boomed and Dad and the high school agricultural teacher built a motel in Sayre to try to get in on the boom. It was not a success but that disappointment was not shared with me. I think this sheltering me from difficulties contributed to my tendency to see the positive side. My friends sometimes call me Pollyanna. I have come to appreciate this take on life. Finding the good and the hope as my default position is not bad.

The Christian Church in Elk City was the blessed community and that is there I grew to appreciate the love and acceptance of these caring, gracious people that are the church. I was at youth group on Sunday, December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. I was fourteen years old and didn’t understand what changes that would bring. Once again I am standing by while a great upheaval looms. As The Great Generation went to war I went to High School. We were let out of school in the fall for a few days to pick cotton to help the farmers whose sons and farm workers had gone to war. My father had a Victory Garden and he tried to raise chickens in our garage which was gross as they started pecking on eachother.

I was a Freshman when Buddy Joseph called and asked me to go the the picture show. I thought he said Betty Joseph and was I surprised when this cute Sophomore boy rang our doorbell. I started having real boyfriends. I remember looking in rapt adoration at Bill Custer’s violet eyes and very long eye lashes, he was my first serious beau. Stanley Chestnut was the last High School romance and he was interested in music and literature. He invited me to his house on Sunday afternoons to listen to the Symphony on the radio. I went down to the train with his folks to see him off to Georgia Tech and the next fall I went to Oklahoma A and M. We never dated again.

When I went to College in 1945 the veterans were coming back to school with their GI Bill to get an education. They were older and had experiences that had changed them into men and I was a young girl, very innocent and introverted. I passed them as I walked across the campus but I was in Home Economics where there was one boy and in Willard Hall eight of us girls moved into one corner room so we could have one room for gathering and study.

The summer between my Sophomore and Junior year at Oklahoma State Buddy Hill called me to go out. The year before he had crashed his P47 fighter plane in France and head injuries caused his discharge from the Air Force. Now he was in school at the University of Oklahoma. Marriage was on his mind and I thought he was great, handsome, smart and I was ready. Finally I was in tune with the culture, I got married and began contributing to the baby boom. He worked on his Ph.D., I finished college and got a job at Choctaw High School east of Oklahoma City and had our first son between my second and third year of teaching.

Virgil (as Bud was called away from Elk City) and I moved to our cute GI Bill house in The Village, a suburb of Oklahoma City. He finished his doctorate in Clinical Psychology and became Director of Pupil Services for the Oklahoma City Schools. I emerged myself in Village Christian Church, child rearing, PTA, League of Women Voters, Book Club, etc. The Oklahoma City Clinic invited Virgil to join their practice and he started his career in private practice. In the 1960’s Virgil was elected to the Oklahoma City School Board as the Supreme Court ordered Oklahoma City to integrate the schools. He died of a heart attack in 1971 as angry letters stuffed our mail box from parents who did not want their children moved from their neighborhood school. Chris was in college in Minnesota and Matthew had just finished his Junior year in High School. My career as a wife and mother ended in one night. I needed to get a job.

I faced this loss at first in denial, I didn’t give myself any time to grieve. My dad had urged me to get a certificate in Vocational Home Economics for such a time as this. Well, I couldn’t get a teaching job in Oklahoma City, they needed to hire black teachers to reach integration goals. Fate opened a door. I went to work as Staff Director at the Regional Office of the Christian Church, my ticket to a new life. I still had grief work to do and I did. I had to learn to do many things that I had no training for, but the support of many people and the challenge of working in areas I had been interested in for years made it happen.

I worked with women and men who were striving to bring equal rights to women in church and society and I moved into the Women’s Movement. I was no longer identified as daughter, wife, mother, now I AM JO.

In 1971 Virgil died. In 1975 I married Don Snyder and began a new chapter of my life. We were not raising children and even though we both worked long hours we had fun. Don had a mobile home at Lake Tenkiller and a beautiful jet boat. We restored the house he bought on 32nd Street in Oklahoma City. We retired, we traveled together in various RVs for ten years, we built our dream home and just before my 83rd birthday in September of 2010 Don died after a few year’s of declining cognitive skills. I was determined to do my grief work this time and I began to write as a part of the grieving process. The writing grew into a desire to write this memoir and it has been healing, rewarding and illuminating. I have written this remembering of my life for myself. It may be of interest to someone else but I do not have to know that.

I see a pattern to my story that follows my mother’s life. I had a carefree childhood, a nurturing role in marriage and finally a yen for adventure. This is the overview, details follow. I invite you into my life.

Margaret Jo Holcomb Hill Snyder.

Chapter 2

MATTHEWS HERITAGE

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DANIEL JORDON MATTHEWS, MY MOTHER’S FATHER, BORN IN 1875, MINNOW CREEK, ARKANSAS, There were so many kin that went before me and I only know about a few of them. The earliest relative I know on the Matthews side of the family came from a town called Matthews, North Carolina. I would love to sit on the porch and hear my great-great grandmother tell how she felt about moving from North Carolina to a new land west of the Mississippi River called Arkansas. She and her husband, Daniel Jordan Matthews moved west before the Civil War to Minnow Creek north of Clarksville, Arkansas where they had a small farm and peach orchard. They built a log house and raised their family there. I saw this house when I was probably four years old. On Decoration Day my parents and I, Grandmother and Grandfather Matthews and several aunts and uncles gathered there from Sallisaw, Oklahoma and around Arkansas for a picnic at Minnow Creek Cemetery.

Many years later I did an audiotape interview with my mother and her sister Margaret where they described the house. It was built high off the ground with a dog trot in the center. I remember this looking like two houses under one roof with a wide passageway between the two parts. One side of the house had two bedrooms, one for the parents and a smaller one had double beds for the girls. There was a ladder to the upstairs where the boys slept. The parlor and dinning room with a long table was on the other side of the dog trot. The kitchen was separate from the house and connected by a breezeway to keep the heat out and the fire danger down.

I would like to know so much more. If only I had known to pay attention and ask about this time in our history I would be able to connect to these stories that shaped my life. Gather your memories while you can! The audiotape I made with my mother and her sisters Margaret and Ruby is a treasure. I also interviewed my mother as I made a photo album of her life. These two resources are almost all I have. There was so much more waiting to be asked for. The sad words are now it is too late!

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My great-great grandfather who came from North Carolina objected the Union Army taking over his house for their Headquarters and a Union soldier shot him dead standing in his doorway. He and his wife left two sons, Reuben and Arron Absolum. Aaron Absolum was born May 30, 1850 and he was my great-grandfather. Aaron returned to the family home after the Civil War and took responsibility of the farm when he was 17 years old. He married Sarah Jane Murray (born 1854). The first of their 14 children was a boy born in October of 1872 when Sarah Jane was 18 years old. He died at birth or in infancy. In January of 1875 twin boys were born, Henry Jacob and Daniel Jordon. Daniel Jordon was my grandfather.

I have been back to Minnow Creek three times since the early 1930’s. Once my mother and I called a Matthews relative who lived in Clarksville and we visited her in her home. She went with us to Minnow Creek cemetery where many of the family are buried. We crossed Minnow Creek and found the place where the old Matthews homestead used to be before it burned down. Another visit was with my mother, her sisters Margaret and Ruby and my cousins Linda and Neal. We walked through the cemetery reading grave stones and then looked for signs of the school house that had stood by Minnow Creek. Neal drove us on up to Woods Mountain and found the small family burial plot that is all that is left of the place where George C. Roberts and Hester Simms Roberts had built their home and reared 8 children, the first of whom was Sarah Emmaline, my grandmother. My third trip to Clarksville and Minnow Creek was made with my husband, Don. We went to the county record library and found letters written by my Great Grandfather, Aaron Absolum Matthews and some of his children. Following is information I know about the children of Aaron and Sarah Matthews (my great grandfather and great grandmother) along with some of the letters that reveal a glimpse into their lives.

1871, Aaron Absolum Matthews and Sarah Jane Murray married.

Together they had 14 children. My mother and her sister Margaret didn’t know how much education Aaron had but he talked like he had a fairly good education. He insisted on all his children going to college. The college they went to was a two-year Normal School in Clarksville, Arkansas sponsored by the Presbyterian Church. Margaret said the girls didn’t go except for the last child, Minnie. Following is the newspaper article about Aaron and Sarah Matthew’s Golden Wedding Anniversary.

Newspaper article of April 27th 1921, At the Matthews homestead on Minnow Creek, numbers of friends and relatives assembled to do honor to Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Matthews, this being their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Seated around the table at the noon hour, were the venerable couple, Mr. and Mrs. Aaron (Abe) Matthews and their nine children, Henry, Dan and Arch of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Mrs. Molly Johnson of Stigler OK, Mrs. J.H. Allen and Stanley of Minnow Creek. Paul and Mrs. Minnie Morton of Gore, OK, a few near relatives, Mr. and Mrs Rube Matthews and Mr. and Mrs Abe Matthews and some friends. At the close of the bountiful repast one of the sons, Arch, arose and fittingly recalled that their father and mother had given to them in their youth a Christian home, and has stood, and sometimes almost alone, for the intellectual, moral and spiritual development of their community, and had sacrificed unceasingly that no good thing might be withheld from them. In effect whatever they had achieved in life they owed to their parents. He then presented fifty dollars in gold as the expression of the love and devotion of us children to our father and mother.

1872, the first of their 14 children was born in October when Sarah Jane was eighteen years old. They named the baby Mary Margaret. She lived 73 years. My name must have originated here. My mothers sister was also named Margaret. I thought Mary Margaret’s name never came up in the telling of the family story. I finally saw a list of some of Aaron Matthews children and it said Mary Margaret Matthews Molly Johnson. Molly is the daughter who wrote and received so many letters from her father, Aaron Matthews. The following letters are from Aaron Matthews to his daughter Molly, his first child.

Letter of July 1918, (Molly) Mrs. A.L. Johnson, Stigler, Oklahoma, Dear Daughter we are about today and hope you are all well. It has been quite a while since I heard from you Molly. It has been mighty dry here this sumer. We will make but very little corn, the prospects now are some better for cotton. There has been a good deal of sickness here this season mostly flux-some deaths. The old lady Ferrell and two of Levi Pitts’ children died of flux. Mrs Ferrell died about three weeks ago. Pitts lives at the south end of Ferrell’s field. He had a grown daughter buried one day and a little boy 7 or 8 years old the next. I had a letter from Lawrence a few days ago. He is in Laredo, Texas yet. His wife is with her mother now at Little Rock. He thinks about the last of August or 1st of September he will get a furlough and he and his wife will visit us a few days. The boys from Oklahoma except Dan and Paul visited us this spring and summer. Ralph - Dan’s boy is here now. Three auto loads of our folks visited Camp Pike and Little Rock about three weeks ago. Stanley and Emma and Ola - Jim and Lizzie and their two girls and Frank Morton and Minnie and Ben and their wives visited Hot Springs before they came back.

I will send you our pictures of Mollie with little Imogene. She and Wilma I suppose are at Mrs. Morrows. Come to see us when you can. Best Wishes. Your Father, Aaron Matthews.

Paragraph of letter from Aaron to his daughter Molly, 1922, It has been and is mighty hot and dry here this summer. Cotton is about as short a crop here as I ever saw. Corn is not as short a crop as cotton. We had one good season in the ground about the 10th to 14th of July and little more than enough to lay the dust good since. The folks that had peaches here I suppose did fine. Jim and Lizzie I expect saved nearly all, got $2000 out of theirs.

Letter from Aaron to his daughter Molly, January, 1926, Dear Daughter, We are about and hope you are well. We received your letter a few days ago. Was very good to hear all were well. No news of importance to you to write.

Your Mother’s hand remains about like it has been for quite a while.

1874, A boy was born in January who died at birth or infancy.

1875, In January twin boys are born, Henry Jacob and Daniel Jordon. Daniel Jordon is my grandfather. I will tell more of Dan later. Henry and Dan grew up on the farm and went to Presbyterian Academy in Clarksville and then taught school, Mother thinks it was Dyer or Altus, Arkansas. Arch, their younger brother, had moved to Oklahoma in 1898 and he wanted Henry to give up teaching and come to Oklahoma and go into business with him. Henry came to Sallisaw in Indian Territory in 1899.

Letter from Henry to his sister Molly, January, 1935, Dear Sister, Am guilty to tell you, but was in your city at dark yesterday, filled up with gas and oil at Southland filling station, arrived home 8 pm.

Was intending to come by, but after the rain and the lateness of the day, could not risk getting stuck and lost in the dark. Will try not to miss you the next time.

Spent Christmas night with father, he was fine, does not even use a stick in getting about. Took him up on Woods Mountain, Waldo place, Powell place, Pemberton and all. He had not been there in several years. Expect to take Father some meat, pork in a few days. He has no hogs on the place or cattle, used to sell both. Said in his letter he had a little cold. It scares me at his age, but he is very careful of himself. Stanley’s third girl is married. Arch at store all time so reasonable well. Love, best wishes to both. Come to see us. Your brother, Henry Matthews.

1877, William Arch is born. Arch grew up on the farm, attended Presbyterian Academy in Clarksville then moved to Sallisaw, Oklahoma and started a general merchandize business. Arch talked his brother Henry into coming to Sallisaw in Indian Territory. Arch married a McDonald girl in Sallisaw and they had a big mercantile business called McDonald and Matthews. My