Oklahoma Boy: An Autobiography

By Ross T. Warner

The life experiences of an Oklahoman in the twentieth century, including recognizably significant historical events.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Park Hudson Press
• Release date: Jul 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215246306

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NOTES ON THE DIGITAL EDITION

This digital edition is presented by Park Hudson Press in an effort to share the history and culture of Oklahoma. While as true as possible to the original content, the original text may have been edited for content and format. The ideas and viewpoints expressed in the text are those of the author and not necessarily those of Park Hudson Press or the Metropolitan Library System. Some material may represent viewpoints of an earlier time that are not appropriate today.

Digital edition created with permission from the Warner family.

Contents

NOTES ON THE DIGITAL EDITION

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. FAMILY BACKGROUND

2. ON TO OKLAHOMA—THE LAND RACE

3. EARLY BOYHOOD ADVENTURES

4. I RUN AWAY FROM HOME

5. HIGH SCHOOL DAYS

6. THE FORTUNATE FRAME-UP

7. BUSINESS VENTURE IN EL PASO

8. LIFE IN TULSA

9. WORLD WAR I—EARLY DAYS

10. HARD WINTER—I BECOME A COURT REPORTER

11. TRIALS BY COURTS-MARTIAL

12. THE CHAMPAGNE FRONT AND BATTLE

13. THE ST. MIHIEL SALIENT

14. THE ARMISTICE—ARMY OF OCCUPATION

15. PORT OF BREST—THE TRIP HOME

16. MARRIAGE AND CIVILIAN LIFE

17. I CHOOSE A PROFESSION

BOOK II

18. PUBLIC ACCOUNTING IN THE 1920’S

19. THE RACE RIOT

20. MY FIRST AUDIT

21. SOME INTERESTING ASSIGNMENTS

22. THE CPA EXAMINATION

23. THE MOVE TO OKLAHOMA CITY

24. THE RETURN TO TULSA

25. REORGANIZING THE TULSA OFFICE

26. WARNER & YOUNG ACQUIRES CC&C

27. THE OKLAHOMA SOCIETY OF CPA’S —

28. FLOUR MILL SYSTEMS JOB—A KANSAS NIGHTMARE

29. THE RING CASE

30. LOAN COMPANY SWINDLE

31. THE GREAT DEPRESSION—A

32. FOUR STATES ACCOUNTING

33. VOICES FROM ALCATRAZ

34. THE OKLAHOMA SCHOOL

35. PEORIA ACRES

36. JAY P. WALKER AND NATIONAL TANK

37. DEATHS IN THE FAMILY

38. WARNER, GODFREY & CO.

39. WE GAIN A SON

40. NATIONAL TANK GOES PUBLIC

41. MOTHER’S LAST ILLNESS

42. PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

43. DICK TAKES A BRIDE

44. WE MERGE WITH ARTHUR YOUNG

45. HUNTING AND FISHING

46. HEALTH PROBLEMS

47. RETIREMENT

FOREWORD

SOME thirty years ago I began writing the story of my life. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t yet lived enough of it, so the manuscript was laid aside until the summer of 1966. By then I was retired from the accounting profession and had plenty of time for the task.

The stories and adventures related here are all true. They are based principally on memory, aided by newspaper and magazine clippings, and by letters and other documents passed down from members of my family. Fortunately, my mother and father kept all the letters I wrote them from France during World War I, and from these I was able to recall many incidents long forgotten.

I am grateful to Thomas G. Higgins, retired Managing Partner of Arthur Young & Company, for reviewing my manuscript and for his many constructive suggestions; to Don Moon, my lifelong friend and former Guthrie High School classmate, who has spent so many hours patiently editing this story; and to Eldon F. Koontz, my nephew, whose words of encouragement inspired me to complete it sooner than otherwise would have been the case. Particularly, I want to thank my secretary, Audrey Andrews, for her assistance in connection with the book, a large part of which she took in shorthand. Her patience in writing, rewriting, correcting, altering, switching, deleting—not once, but many times, is sincerely appreciated.

In order not to embarrass some of the people who have a part herein, I have used substitute names, and have so indicated, except in those cases where the real names have long been forgotten or the incident is of no great importance. In some instances draft copies of the chapters were submitted to those whose real names have been used, and their advance approval obtained.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful appreciation is expressed to The Viking Press, Inc., for permission to quote from Cherokee Strip by Marquis James, copyright 1945; and to Mc-Graw-Hill Book Company for the privilege of using excerpts from Reminiscences by Douglas MacArthur, copyright 1964 by Time, Inc.

To Louise, whose devoted loyalty and encouragement have sustained me

for nearly half a century, this book is lovingly dedicated.

Ross T. Warner

December 1967

BOOK I

1. FAMILY BACKGROUND

I DO NOT KNOW very much about my father’s people, except that Grandfather Warner was brought to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from Germany when he was only five years old. He became a man of great physical strength, and was a blacksmith by trade. My father, Sylvester Warner, was born February 5,1848. With five brothers and one sister he spent his childhood in Harrisburg. From there the family moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where Grandfather Warner continued in the blacksmithing business.

My mother’s father, John Newton Shepherd, was a native of West Virginia, but was living on a farm in Ohio at the date of his marriage. Soon after, the couple moved to a farm near Knoxville, Iowa, where my mother was born June 5, 1855.

Grandfather Shepherd was extraordinarily strong minded, and was a great believer in dreams. He used to tell about how his marriage came about. He dreamt one night that a family had moved into a vacant house about a mile away from his farm home and that the family included a teen-age girl with bright red hair. The next day he rode his horse to the farmhouse and introducing himself learned that a family by the name of Henderson, with an eighteen-year-old redheaded daughter, had moved in just a few days before. Shortly afterwards (on August 10, 1854) my grandfather and Harriet Henderson were married.

The Shepherd family were staunch Methodists. Whiskey in those days was plentiful and a man who did not have a barrel of it in his cellar was considered a poor provider. One Sunday at church Great-Grandfather Shepherd heard a sermon on the evils of drink. He was so impressed that he had the boys roll the barrel out of the cellar, whereupon he bashed in the end of it with a sledge hammer. This ended whiskey drinking around the Shepherd home.

Grandfather Shepherd’s mother was one of the Baltimore Calverts. My mother’s name was Elva Louisa, and she and my father were married in Des Moines on October 29, 1871. She was the eldest of nine children. Mother was just sixteen when she married, my father twenty-three.

I was the youngest of my parents’ ten children. In order of birth these children were Leora (born 1872), Fred, Winifred, Hallie, Clifton, Richard, Floyd, Hazel, Kitty, and myself.

Three of the ten—Leora, Hallie and Kitty—all died in infancy from what was then called summer complaint or cholera infantum which in those days took thousands of lives year after year. It was not known then that cholera infantum was caused by harmful bacteria in milk. Many infants were to die before the pasteurization of milk would come into general use.

I was born on September 23, 1895 on a small farm in Logan County, Oklahoma Territory, some eleven miles northwest of Guthrie. My mother’s family, the Shepherds, lived on an adjoining farm. The Shepherds had moved to Oklahoma from Kansas in 1893. Our family moved to Oklahoma from Iowa in 1894.

I was christened Ross Taylor. Mother said she had seen the name Ross somewhere in print and liked it. Taylor was the name of a famous Methodist bishop, and I suppose Mother hoped that it would influence me to become a preacher.

My father and both my grandfathers served in the Union Army in the Civil War. My grandfathers enlisted in August 1862 in the Iowa Infantry and served until the summer of 1865. Both of them saw a great deal of action. Grandfather Shepherd had a number of bullet holes in his blouse bearing witness to his many skirmishes with death. Grandfather Warner also had close calls. He saw action in many battles and came through the siege and capture of Vicksburg. My father enlisted in the First Nebraska Cavalry in 1864. Most of his service in the Union Army had to do with quelling Indian uprisings in the West. He loved the wide open spaces, and for some years after the war he rode as guard for pioneer covered wagons going west.

Although Dad was only 5’5" in height, weighing one hundred forty pounds, he was physically strong and could outwork anyone around him. I suppose it was the result of spending so much time in the saddle that he wore a size 5% shoe.

When Dad enlisted at the age of sixteen he had only a third grade education. He made an attempt to continue his schooling when he returned to Des Moines, but was discouraged by his association with nine-and ten-year olds. So he quit school and took up commercial gardening.

Not long after his marriage, Dad became increasingly restless to move farther west as so many families were doing. After thinking about the matter for a long time, he and Mother decided to stake out a new life in Dakota Territory. So in March of 1873, my parents with Leora, then seven months old, and Dad’s brother, Silas, left Des Moines with all their worldly possessions. These consisted of the team of horses they were driving, the wagon, its contents of personal effects, and one dog trotting along under the wagon. Dad was twenty-five years old and Mother would be eighteen in a few months. During the three weeks it took them to travel from Des Moines to Yankton, in Dakota Territory (now South Dakota), they usually camped out, but on several occasions they were able to stay overnight in a farmhouse.

The distance from Des Moines to Yankton, as the crow flies, is somewhat over two hundred miles. This is not far today but in 1873, with conditions as they were then, it was a long, arduous, discouraging journey.

When the family finally reached Yankton they learned they could file a homestead claim on a farm located about six miles north of the town. The place had been abandoned by the original settlers and there were some crude buildings which seemed sufficient for temporary quarters. The house was constructed of rough lumber and was fairly tight. The barn was made of logs which were not well fitted together so that there was considerable space between them. A garden was soon planted and a field plowed for grain.

About three weeks after the family arrived, a heavy snow storm blew in from the northwest. As the storm showed no signs of letting up, Dad started out to look after the horses. The blinding blizzard made it impossible to see anything, but he thought if he could get to the woodpile, which was between the house and barn, he could determine the location of the barn from there. With some difficulty he got to the barn. There he found that the horses had trampled the snow as it sifted in through the chinking, and that it had risen so high their backs were up against the loft floor. With an axe he was able to chop away enough of the loft flooring to give some relief to the horses. After filling their stalls with hay and grain he headed back for the house, and in the blizzard, missed the woodpile. He would extend his arms and walk in zigzag fashion in what he supposed was the right direction. Fortunately, he touched the far corner of the building. If he had gone by, I probably would not be writing this story.

It snowed for six days, and supplies were running short. When the snow finally stopped, Dad hitched up the team and started out to break a trail to Yankton. As it turned out it was not necessary to go there, for on the way he met some Yankton people who were coming to his house with food and fuel. Mother said the snow could be seen in the gulches as late as August.

Life in these parts was terribly difficult both in winter and summer. In the winter it was cruelly cold with below zero temperatures and frequent blizzards. In the summer the sun beat down remorselessly, and hot winds made the days and nights very uncomfortable.

The summer of 1873 was particularly hot and dry, and the garden and crops were not doing well. One day late in August Mother heard a buzzing sound which grew louder and louder. She went out into the yard and saw a dark cloud in the north. A few minutes later millions upon millions of grasshoppers settled on the countryside. She and Dad and his brother took brooms, gunny sacks, and whatever they could get their hands on, and tried to beat the grasshoppers off the garden. It did no good. When the hoppers were gone everything was completely bare. The garden was destroyed, and every growing thing stripped of its leaves. After this disaster it was necessary to depend to some extent on help from more fortunate farmers. Dad and Uncle Silas also added to the family’s supplies by hunting and fishing.

There were plenty of frightening experiences for Mother who necessarily spent a good deal of time alone. One night when it was very late she was sitting in the kitchen rocking the baby. She heard a slight noise and glancing up was startled to see the face of an Indian staring in through the window at her. Evidently the man was just curious, for he left without causing any trouble.

Sometime that summer my parents learned of a camp meeting being held south of Yankton across the Missouri River. One Sunday they drove to the river where some Indians with canoes were ferrying people to the other side. Mother and baby sister made the first crossing, followed by Dad and then Uncle Silas. It was a fine holiday for them and they got home sometime after midnight.

Mother became more and more homesick for Des Moines, where the family had lived on the outskirts of the city. She missed the rolling countryside with its green grass and trees. Finally Dad and Mother and Uncle Silas were all in agreement that they should call it quits, so in the latter part of September (1873) they packed up to return to Iowa. They made the long trip with only the usual difficulties, and settled on a large garden tract, now a part of the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

The land where my family lived was deep and rich, and admirably suited to gardening. Dad would gather the garden products early in the morning and take them by buggy or spring wagon into Des Moines where he sold them to grocery stores.

My oldest brother, Fred, had a wonderful personality and showed great promise. He wanted very much to go on to become a doctor. He got what now would be considered about an eighth grade education. Dad and Mother disagreed on the question of his continuing school. Mother was for school, but Dad wanted Fred in the garden. One particular fall, on the day before school was to start, Dad agreed that it would be all right for Fred to attend. However, the next morning when Mother looked out of the window she saw Fred and Dad headed for the garden. That was the end of Fred’s education. And so it was with the other boys—they quit school after the eighth grade and worked in the garden with Dad.

2. ON TO OKLAHOMA—THE LAND RACE

FROM 1820 to 1837 the Five Civilized Tribes, together with several smaller tribes of Indians, were moved to the rich area between Texas and Kansas, which today comprises the State of Oklahoma. While there was every intention that these reservations be permanent, it was probably inevitable that as settlers began to press farther and farther to the west they would begin to agitate for a share of this large area. The pressure finally became so great that the government could no longer resist it. Accordingly, certain lands were opened to settlement in 1889, 1891, and 1892, and then in 1893 the Cherokee Outlet in northern Oklahoma, commonly known as the Cherokee Strip, was opened.

The 1893 land race drew people from all over the country, and in August and September thousands of land-hungry men and a scattering of women lined up on the Kansas side of the northern boundary of Oklahoma. The territory to be settled was marked off in quarter sections. There were also certain townsites, such as Enid and Perry, where town lots could be claimed.

At noon on September 16, guns were fired up and down the line signaling the start of the race. It must have been a thrilling spectacle to see those thousands of people rushing down into Oklahoma, everyone expecting to stake one hundred sixty acres of land or a town lot.

Here is how Marquis James recalls the race in Cherokee Strip:

Well, sir, in this race there were thousands of horses and thousands of riders and drivers, and they stretched in a line across the prairie as far as you could see. Papa asked me to look to the east and look to the west and imagine all those horses strung out ready to break. Most of the horses were under saddle. The others were hitched to every kind of rig. Light rigs—buckboards, spring wagons and sulkies—were the best. But there were covered wagons, lots of them, and even people on foot.

They broke with a yell and at first you couldn’t see a thing for the dust that was raised where the grass had been trampled away along the starting line. In this blinding cloud the wheels of rigs locked and there were spills at the very start. When the racers got out on the grass, the dust went down except along the Chisholm Trail. The riders took the lead, mostly, with the fastest driving horses and lightest wagons next. And on they went. There were no roads, mind you, except the Trail, and no bridges. You got down and up draws and across creeks and ravines and gullies as best you could. Or you headed them. Wagons stuck in the streams and stalled in the draws. Rigs broke down from the rough going. By and by the horses that had been ridden or driven too hard began to play out. Horses that had started slower began to edge ahead.... With five miles to go to Enid, of the thousands who started, about a hundred held the lead. Most of the others were far behind, some dropping out all the time to stake claims along the Trail or to veer east or west. The rest pressed on to get nearer Enid. The hundred leaders dwindled to fifty, nearly all on horseback, though a few buckboards were still keeping up.

There is a remarkable mural depicting the race of 1893 on the west wall of the banking floor of The First National Bank and Trust Company of Tulsa.

In this, as well as in the earlier land rushes, certain men sneaked inside the boundaries and hid out in caves and wooded areas awaiting the day of the race. U.S. soldiers combed the area, but those sooners who were not rounded up quickly staked the one hundred sixty acres they had chosen for themselves, and it was usually the best land. Oklahoma henceforth would be known as the Sooner State.

My father was caught up with the enthusiasm that was building during that summer of 1893, so he came from Des Moines to make the race on horseback. He got as far as Perry where he staked a one hundred sixty acre claim a few miles northeast of the town.

It was required that the claimant spend at least one night of each month on his land. After a month or so, my father sold his rights for one dollar an acre and went back to Des Moines. Many years later oil was discovered all through that area. I am sure the quarter section which Dad had claimed produces oil today.

When Grandfather Shepherd moved from Kansas to Oklahoma in 1893, he settled on a quarter section of land in Logan County, some eleven miles northwest of Guthrie. This was a part of the lands opened up in the race of 1889. After my grandparents were settled, my brother Cliff, with a paper pinned to his coat showing his name and where he was going, was put on a train at Des Moines for Guthrie where Grandfather met him.

Then in the following year my parents, with my other brothers and sisters, followed in a covered wagon. They rented a farm near the Shepherds, later building their own house on land which Dad had bought. He and my brothers did all the work and, for the times, it was considered a good house. It was built with lumber, and had a stone foundation. The one thing that stands out clearly in my mind is the stained glass front window. On the ground floor there was a living room, kitchen and one bedroom. The children slept on the second floor, which was reached by a ladder. In those days there were no screens, and flies were everywhere. Peach boughs were used to shoo the flies at meal time. It’s a wonder that our family did not have more sickness.

This was hilly, blackjack country. Life was hard, and there was little to show for the great amount of work that had to be done. Blackjack trees were cut and burned and many of the stumps had to be blasted. In the spring of 1895, Dad was plowing a field that supposedly had been cleared of stumps. Sometimes, however, the plow would catch on an old root or part of a buried stump, and it would have to be worked loose before going ahead. One day the plow caught under a heavy root, and Dad thought he had loosened it. He stepped to one side of the plow and snapped a whip over the backs of the horses. A tug broke and the doubletree flew back and struck Dad’s left leg on the shin. The bone was shattered and the foot bent back over the doubletree. Fortunately, the horses stood still.

My mother’s youngest sister, Nettie Shepherd, was riding horseback along the road a quarter of a mile away, heading for our house. She saw the horses standing still in the field and, fortunately, rode over to see where Dad was. They got him to the house and sent for Dr. E. O. Barker, who lived in Guthrie. It took eight hours to get word to the doctor and for him to reach the farm. He removed sixteen splinters of bone from the leg. It was nearly a year before Dad could resume work.

To make matters worse, Mother was pregnant with me at the time Dad was hurt. She was forty years old and he was forty-seven, when I was born.

Our barn was located some one hundred fifty feet from the house and had been built at the top edge of a steep slope. The side nearest the house was on level ground and the side farthest away had been walled up with stone, so that the floor, which was level with the ground in front, was actually the loft floor and was used for storing hay and grain. The horse stalls were in the semibasement. This was fine for the horses as it gave them maximum warmth in the winter, and it was fairly cool in the summer.

This barn has a definite place in my memory as its unusual architecture contributed to a fall that left its marks on the lower part of my back. My sister Hazel, six years my senior, was being sent on an errand to Grandmother Shepherd’s, about two miles from our house. A visit to Grandmother’s was always something to look forward to. Hazel had gone to the barn to get a horse to ride. Hoping to go along, I trailed her. While she was getting the saddle, I climbed up the side of the stone foundation at the back of the barn, lost my balance, and toppled down onto a barbed wire fence. I still have scars from the cuts I received. I was badly frightened and there was no visit to Grandmother’s for me that day.

Grandmother was a wonderful cook, and there were always plenty of cookies and pies on her pantry shelves. Something at Grandmother’s always tasted better than it did at home. Her cookies had a better flavor and her pies were perfectly seasoned. Her pound cake was out of this world, and her homemade bread, hot from the oven, covered with a generous portion of melted butter and sprinkled with sugar, belies description.

I was very fond of milk, and followed my dad around during milking time carrying a large mug which he would fill fresh from the cow. At that time I thought there was nothing better than fresh warm milk. Some years later I had an opportunity to sample some and I was surprised to find it almost nauseating.

On Saturday, the Fourth of July 1896, my eldest sister Winnie, then a schoolteacher in Guthrie, and Alva Koontz, a clerk in the County Treasurer’s office to whom she was engaged, drove to Crescent City in a hired rig to observe the holiday, returning to our farm place to spend the night and Sunday.

On their way back to town late Sunday evening they were suddenly accosted by three men about a mile north of Guthrie. Two grabbed the horse’s bridle, and the third man, who later proved to be Bill Doolin, a notorious outlaw, demanded that they put up their hands. Alva could raise only one arm as he had lost the other one in a threshing machine accident several years before. Doolin yelled, Put up your other arm! I have only one, replied Alva and, with that, they were ordered out of the buggy. Doolin threw the lap robe at Alva, saying, We don’t need this thing, it’s too damned hot! Alva threw it back at Doolin—he wasn’t about to lug it the mile they would have to walk to town. The three men turned the rig around and drove away at a dead gallop.

On arriving in Guthrie, Alva and Winnie reported the holdup and later learned that fourteen desperados had escaped from the Federal jail, which was located on the northeast corner at the intersection of Noble Avenue and Second Street. The escapees apparently spread out, some going west, and several north along the tracks of the Santa Fe Railroad, which parallels the wagon road along which Alva and Winnie had been driving. The newspaper account of the incident stated that the three men who had held up Alva and Winnie were undoubtedly Bill Doolin, who was being held for murder, Dynamite Dick, alias Dan Clifton, slayer of eight men, and W. H. Jones of Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, an alleged counterfeiter.

Some weeks later Doolin was killed in a battle with deputy marshals led by Heck Thomas. The fight took place just east of the Lawson post office in Payne County, not far from Ingalls.

Winnie and Alva were married by Grandfather Shepherd early in 1898. In addition to being a farmer, Grandfather was an ordained Methodist minister. He preached at many localities including Stony Point, Crescent, Lovell, and Mulhall, making his rounds with a horse and buggy.

The farm where we lived was in a wild country; there were panthers, wildcats, and coyotes everywhere. Sometimes at night a wildcat would get on the roof of our house and the dogs would raise a terrific commotion. We had one old hound dog that couldn’t be kept out of the cellar. He would spoil the butter and milk that were stored there. Mother had asked the boys to get rid of the dog, but they kept putting it off. One morning when Mother and I were alone at home, she told me to sit on the porch while she took the dog for a walk. We later learned that she had hanged it from a tree limb behind the barn, and then buried it.

Mother was very strong and had a dominant personality. Nothing daunted her. She met trouble face to face and usually came out on top. When I was about five years old my brother Dick came down with typhoid fever. He was in bed for sixteen weeks and Mother nursed him all that time.

While our family had plenty of good solid farm food including large amounts of cornmeal mush, we sometimes lacked the money to buy such things as coffee, sugar, overalls, and dresses. My father was receiving a small pension for his army service in the Civil War, and that was about all the cash we had. One summer Dad and a neighbor raised watermelons on a contract basis. They agreed to haul and load them in boxcars at Lawrie Station, which was on the Santa Fe, about six miles from our farm. They got three cents a melon for the work of raising, hauling, and loading. The melons went to a firm in Kansas City.

Mother and Dad would make a trip into Guthrie at least once a month to buy groceries. They would start out about four o’clock in the morning with old Maude and Pet hitched to a farm wagon. This wagon had a spring seat for two people at the front, but for any children who went along there was just a board laid across the wagon bed. They would get to Guthrie about eleven o’clock in the morning and stop at a wagon yard to unhitch the horses and feed and water them. Usually they would have packed a lunch, but on rare occasions all would go to the Saddle Rock Restaurant where a full meal could be had for fifteen cents per person. Food was cheap in those days— eggs were ten cents a dozen, and for a quarter you could get enough beefsteak to feed a family of six. The trip home would start in the middle of the afternoon, and it was usually ten or eleven o’clock by the time we got there. From the Cimarron River, which is about two miles north of Guthrie, to Skeleton Creek there was very heavy sand, and the horses would be worn out after the day’s trip.

We always had plenty of cats on the farm. I remember one in particular which was a great hunter. When the doors of our house would be left open in the spring and summer for ventilation she would frequently bring in two or three rabbits at night. How I loved fried rabbit and still do!

I recall getting up very early one