The House Between Two Hills: A Memoir

By Nila Adair

The House Between Two Hills is a poignant tale about one woman's adventurous life in the foothills of eastern Oklahoma. Nila Adair shares the challenge of survival, the grief of loss, and the joy of family through it all in this uplifting memoir.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Okie Noir Press
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781087919744

Book preview

Prologue

This is my story about being a little girl born in the Oklahoma hills during the 1940’s post-depression era.  I was an only child, born to older parents.  Life on a farm was sometimes hard and lonely, but life also had its way of working out.  I never wanted to be away from home for any length of time.  I might go visit with a friend from Sunday school, but come night fall, I wanted to be home.  

           I started school with many of my cousins and friends I’d known all my life.  Two little girls, one little boy, and I would meet in the mornings and walk to school.  Our country school was about a mile from my house and of an evening we took a short cut through the field and alongside the creek which ran next to some caves.  Getting home was always a fun adventure.  We picked wildflowers and searched for pretty rocks. Country children always made their fun out of the simplest things. 

One little girl would ask to spend the night with me sometimes. She didn’t have a mother, so for her to get to spend the night, she would have to peel potatoes and make cornbread first.  She lived with her dad, uncle, and little brother so she did a lot of the cooking.  I can’t imagine kids nowadays doing this type of work at such an early age.  She loved to come to my house and eat my Mom’s cooking.  My cousins over the hill from my house were all boys.  One younger, one my age, and another two years older.  They were my buddies.  We climbed, ran, jumped, made grape vine swings, and swam in the creek.  We were never bored. 

            I had so many friends growing up in this community. There were hills and hollows (we called them hollers) everywhere and in every holler lived families. Turkey Holler had two families with lots of children. We went to school, church, and the creek together. Everyone played in the clear, cold water.

            Air-conditioning was unheard of here, so you stayed in the cold, clear spring water until your lips turned blue. We stayed cool a long time.  Our community was so peaceful. I remember the first TV in the community. My uncle, who had three girls, got one and on certain nights he and my dad would watch the fights.  Before the fights, I Love Lucy always came on.  What a treat!  She was so funny. Before long, different families got televisions, too.  There was so much entertainment; these were all family shows. They never had any offensive language. I wonder why things had to change.

            Morning and evening I had chores to do. That was just part of living on a farm. We had chickens, horses, pigs, and cattle to feed.   Milking cows was one of the chores we did twice a day. Of a morning, the cows would be at the barn to be milked and fed, but of an evening, a few of the cows lingered in the pasture. Someone would have to go to the field and start them toward the barn.  It seemed as if they did it on purpose, just to make you come get them.  Usually I went to get the strays.  I would start them toward the barn and then I get on my pet cow and ride her back.  Who needs a horse, when you have a pet cow?  Her name was Pet, by the way.

Life was always interesting on the farm.  Our place was split down the middle by a spring-fed creek, where I spent many memorable hours catching crawdads, swimming, or trying to catch a fish.  The barn was always full of hay and the corn crib full of corn for the chicken and horses, or to feed the mama pigs. 

Our little white house sat between the two hills like a sentinel watching over our peaceful place with its farm animals and my wonderful family.

Chapter 1

Set the stage

How we came to be at the House Between Two Hills.

Back in the late 1800’s lived a young lady named Joanna. She was born in the backwoods; an unlearned, superstitious woman.  She was the first born to a family of seven.  Life was hard for this girl.  She wasn’t afforded the opportunity to go to school.  She felt like an indentured servant.  Her stepdad was not a kind man.  She had to spend her time doing chores and caring for her siblings.  But when the other children became school age, they were allowed to attend school.  She never learned to read or write her own name. 

Joanna was of Cherokee descent.  Back then, the white community looked down on Cherokees.  They didn’t think they were civilized.  But the Cherokee people were a family-oriented tribe with strong blood ties.  Their ways were just different from the white people and the white people were different from the Cherokee.  It all came down to which side of the fence you were on to decide who was right.  Down through the ages people have always been different in their beliefs and ways, no matter the color of their skin. 

            Joanna’s grandmother was strong in her beliefs.  She wouldn’t teach her family their native tongue.  She said, you live in a white man’s world now, so you speak his language.  She knew the difficulties there would be for Cherokee children if they spoke their language.  She believed in the legend of the Little People.  If you didn’t leave food out for them at night, it was bad luck, and they would play mean tricks on you, like throwing rocks at the house to keep you awake at night. Sometimes they made noises outside so you couldn’t sleep.  If you were good to them and left out food, in return they would be helpful.  They would find lost children or items that had been lost.  Myth or legend?

            Owls served as signs to the Cherokee.  They told a story that the spirits of people live in owls.  Some say good spirits, and some say bad.  Myth or legend? Medicine men were part of the culture.  It was their way of taking care of the sick and other beliefs.  Their medicine consisted of plants, herbs, and tobacco. That was the ancient, traditional way.  The old Cherokee way is beginning to vanish now, with very few keeping the knowledge of the old ways.

            Joanna’s people took these signs seriously.  These are some aspects of the culture she grew up with.  She passed some of these beliefs and stories down to her children.  As time passed, she grew into a pretty, dark haired, brown eyed young lady.  She met a young man a few years her senior.  He was from Kentucky.  Why he was here in Oklahoma Indian territory, we never heard.  He was fair skinned, green-eyed, and educated.  Some would call him a white man, but he was Irish.  This dark-haired Cherokee beauty caught his eye.  Sometime later they were married and to this union six children were born. 

            In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, land in Oklahoma was being allotted to the Cherokee and Joanna was given 140 acres.  Her Irish husband wasn’t much of a farmer.  He was fortunate to have a wife that was allotted a