Chapter 21

 A TRIP TO MONTANA IN A MODEL T FORD

Can you imagine this conversation, approximately 92 years ago, at the home of Bill and Tommie Anderson;

 Bill,  I think I will go to Montana to see my sisters Mae and Bell.

 Tommie,  how do you plan to get from Strong City to Montana?

 Bill,  I will take our youngest, Leona and Georgia Faye, Leona is 14 now and she can drive our Model T Ford. 

Tommie,  how long will you be gone?

 Bill, about a month or two.

 Tommie, I  think I will stay home and take care of our borders.

 Well it happened!  I would assume in 1924 there were few paved roads between Oklahoma and Montana.  Only a few hotels and no fast food restaurants.  Leona said they camped out at night. For food, Dad would sit in the front passenger seat and whenever he saw a rabbit, squirrel, or quail  he would take out his Colt 38 pistol and shoot our next meal.  I assume Grandmother Tommie packed plenty of biscuits to send along.

  Bill’s son, Orren Anderson, taking the ladies for a ride in the family Model T Ford

 When they arrived at a Indian reservation, near La Junta, Colorado, they parked near a bon fire.  Leona said “Dad followed two men with big black hats, and told Georgia Faye and I to stay in the car.”  They watched Dad visit with the Indians who led him to a teepee.   He was gone for awhile and when he came back to the car, Leona ask him who he was visiting, well if you want to see come with me (Georgia Faye was asleep in the car and did not go with them).  They went to a teepee  where there was “ a very old grey haired lady with nice cloths” sitting on the ground.  She did not speak English, however this was not a problem as Dad spoke fluent Cherokee. When they left Leona ask her Dad, who was that lady, he simply said “she was a relative”.  A lot of research has gone on since then and no one has been able to determine who this relative was?

 Grandfather made application for membership to the Eastern Cherokee Nation, Miller Roll #34466, on August 16, 1907.  His Miller application, along with several sworn statements from Cherokees who were acquainted with granddad’s ancestry, stated that he had Cherokee blood from his ggg grandmother, Bettie Harlan, who had lived in the old Cherokee Nation, East.  Unfortunately, like Tommie’s ancestors, his ggg grandmother Bettie did not sign the Indian “Rolls”, which was a requirement for membership.  Back in 1907, Bill did not have the computers and sources such as Ancestry.com that we have for tracing our blood relatives today. It would have been impossible for Bill  to provide the information they required on Bettie Harlan, who was born in 1760.  Many Eastern Native American Indians did not want to sign the rolls, they simply wanted to stay in their native Carolina country.

 My memories of our grandparents goes back to the 1940’s, when I was a young teenager.  I remember showing Granddad Bill my Hereford heifer calf that I had earned by hoeing cotton  for Aunt Leona and Uncle Jess Sullins.  Granddad said “Jim Lee we need to ear mark this heifer”,  then he took out his knife and chopped off half of that young calf’s ear.  I had tears in my eyes for my poor calf.

 I do not believe Granddad ever really learned how to drive, but after his driver, Aunt Leona married, he was on his own.  When I was 12 years old he decided to take my cousin Dwayne and I for a ride.  As we rounded a country dirt road corner, he got to close to the bar ditch and we rolled over.  Dwayne and I layed upside down as Granddad calmly said “don’t worry boys everything is ok”.  My reply was “Granddad we are upside down”!  We walked back to the farm where he got a team of horse to help upright his Model A Ford.

    It is interesting that Strong City had a Ford dealership in the early days.

 When visiting  grandmother Tommie Lee, I remember her cooking biscuits and hugging us at the same time.  She was a beautiful woman who thought only of others.  She had a wonderful Christian influence on granddad, her children and grandchildren.  She took granddad to a country revival when he was 37 and he was baptized.  He was quiet and a gentle man, the stories he told his daughters were never in a bragging manner.  He simply lived in the early days where the six shooter ruled.  His horsemanship was well known around western Oklahoma.  At the age of 70, he won the Cheyenne, Oklahoma Rodeo calf roping contest.

Our grandparents, Bill and Tommie Anderson, July 1937.

We are blessed to have Bill and Tommie’s adventurous and compassionate genes!