Church in Holton and went back to Oklahoma to begin housekeeping in an unfinished house which John had started to build on a farm near Arapaho. As part of the struggle to maintain a supply of water in the dry western country of Oklahoma, they dug a cistern by the house. (When John visited the old home place in 1960, the cistern was still intact.) Their first child, Lois, was born in 1907 and when only two years old, fell into a tub of hot water and received severe burns from which she died. From this tragedy, Edna never fully recovered.
     The Washita River ran between the farms of George and John. In order to cross the river, it was necessary to ford it. This was simple most of the time as it was generally low. It is a long riger and at times rain would fall upstream and swell the river even though Custer County had clear bright weather. Several people were drowned by driving into the river in the dark, when it was at flood stage. One evening, John, Edna and Earl, who was about 1 1/2 years old and Rosella, a babe in arms, had been over to George's. When they got to the river, it was bank full. They felt they must get home so John stood up in the buggy to balance It, and Edna sat on the back of the seat, with Earl and Roselle on each knee. The horses swam across safely and the family had only wet feet to tell of the feat of fording a flooded river.
     John was a corn and hog man (even when he was 81 years old his pride and joy was a sow with nine pigs the "spitting image of their mother'). In Oklahoma the rains were short and infrequent and the successful farmers turned to wheat and cotton. John did raise some cotton but never got into the spirit of it. Once John said he was going down the cotton row, "as fast as smoke" and Earl echoed that he would go down his row "like a little smoke". When corn and hogs failed, John and Edna with their two children returned to Kansas in the spring of 1913. They settled on a farm In the Pottawattomie Indian Reservation, near Mayetta.
     Reva was born near Mayetta and it was while living here that Earl and Rosella started to school, walking 2 1/2 miles. They were often late and sometimes loitered on their way home. Once they took a short cut across a pasture and waded across a creek in which there was much fill sand. Rosella sank to her waist in the sand. It took the united forces of all kids on the bank to rescue her from this sand pit. It was while they were living here that Fred and Rosie Watts, with Rex, Evan and Faith, visited them one Sunday. The kids were playing ball and Evan seemed to be out of the game. He decided on the strategy of calling to the pitcher "Pitchie the ball to me boy."
     The family moved to near Denison in 1920 and spent the rest of the time in and around Denison until 1957, with the exception of one year near Circleville (1922-23). The children graduated from Excelsior grade school and from Denison High School. Earl received his A.B. from Tarkio College and his PH.,D. from Ohio State College in 1940. He now teaches at Missouri University in Columbia, Missouri. Rosella received her A.B. from Tarkio College in 1938 and her M.T. (ASCP)from Lattimore-Fink Laboratories in 1948. She is now employed by the Santa Fe Hospital in


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