MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
Vard T. Worstell (1886 - 1974) 

[last edit May 25, 2012]

page 3 [1893, age 7]
page 8 [1901, age 15]
page 12 [1907, age 21]
page 17 1912, age 26
Christmas 1914, age 28, married
page 21 [1918, age 32]
page 24 [1936, age 48]
page 26 1972? age 86

     1 was born June 22, 1886, in a 1itt1e 10g cabin, about eight mi1es north, apd just a little east, of Rolla, 
Phelps County, Missouri. My birth and surroundings were very simi1ar to Abraham Lincoln's. The great 
difference was Linc01n was endowed with a lot of brains and thinking power whi1e 1 was not. My father's 
name was 8eth Sylvester Worstell. My mother's name was E1izabeth Bou1ware Worste11. 1 had two 
01der brother's, Moses Frank1in, who was born Sept. 1, 1880, and A1bert Issac, who was born June 26, 
1883. ff.y sister Sophronia Jane was born Ju1y 3, 1889, and Mary Alice was born in 1893. Char1es 
Wi11iam, the youngest farnily member was born Feb. 10, 1898. Albert and 1 were the on1y two that 
were born in the same place, and there were three pLaces where we 1ived that there were no b1rths. 

     We moved from the litt1e Log cabin where 1 was born when 1 was three years 01d, but I remember 
going back there and seeing the house one time after that. 

My Mother told about my having the whooping cough when I was three weeks old--how my face would 
turn b1ue and she thought I wou1d not 1ive. I remember we had one small ,bl~~~.,~?r~, we, ,~c:~2-e~":~t 
she must have been getting old then, because when I was three weeks old I caught the whooping cough and 
r~,<c~,-. ,~",~,"-t1!.~Y;. had to milk the oilld mare and feed the milk to me. I do not remember anything 
about that, but I guess it saved my life.  I think my mother sat up and held me in her lap all night for three 
weeks without going to bed. Her love for me and drinking mare's milk (in composition, is next to human's 
milk) kept me a1ive. 

     The next p1ace we 1ived we ca11ed the fI Offh01de-rH P1ace because Dad sold it to John Offh01der. 
It was in the Offho1der fami1y the last 1 had any trace of it. It was near Tick C:ceek and in the V,ynn 
Schoo1 District, which was probab1y the best school district in that part of the county. Bi11 Wynn had a 
1arge frame white house not far from the school. He a1so o~ned the Wynn bottom on the Gasconade 
River. This river bottom was divided up in sma11 acreages, which were rented out to the hi11 and ridge 
settlers who wou1d go dovm there and batch during the summer and raise a corn crop. They lived in liitle 
log cabins ca11ed shanties. If things "lere normal, they got the same shanty and same land year after year. 

-2- 

    When batching during the summer, we cooked what we had to on a small box-weod stove. We lived mostly on 
bacon, cornbread, gravy, and coffee. The cornbread we brought from home on Monday. We went home every week 
and sometimes more, especially if it rained. Sometimes, I remember, we wouLd take some potatoes and other vege- 
tables if we had them. 
 
    This bottom land raised good corn because almost every year, the river would get over the farm land 
and leave some silt, wh l ch settled on this land. Up the river where my Grandmother lived, the floods would 
wash the soil off most of the farm and keep the land poor. My Grandfather rented this farm before I was 
born from some land speculators in St. Louis. As long as my Grandmother lived, they let her stay there al- 
though they never got much rent from it. After my Grandmother died, my uncles could not rent it. I re- 
member, I stayed at my Grandmother's a lot because she was good to me whereas my older brothers at home, were 
not.
 
    We lived in the Wynn School District longer than we lived at any place while I was living at home. 
I went to school three terms--two of them to Jane Wynn, the daughter of Bill Wynn, wno was the best man in 
that part of the state to help his fellowmen. He was superintendent of Sunday School a t the school house. 
He rented his land out to as many as he could to help them make a living, and he would go out of his way to 
help those who needed help. I know he would give work to Dad to help us out. 
 
    I guess Jane was a good teacher for the larger ones, but for the young beginners, she was tough. She taught 
the whole school. They did not have grades then, but went according to the "readerH--they had first, second, 
third, fourth, and fifth readers. Then history began. 

    I remember when I started in, I thought I should study. We did not start in learning to read but to 
learn our If A, B, C's"--or the alphabet. I went to school about two years before I could read and I 
wanted to read, too. 

-3- 

    I remember one time the teacher grabbed her stick and whipped me because she caught me drawing a pic- 
ture on my slate. She pounced on me for everything. I was afraid to tell my folks at home. They kept my 
older brothers out to work a lot, and my sisters were too young to go to school. Our nelghbora Hawkins, . 
were very good and respected people. When they told my parents~~the teacher treated me, I was taken out 
of school. 

    The last year I went to school there, Clara Groover taught. She had gone to school to Jane Wynn one year, 
received her certificate and taught the next. She could not teach; nor could she keep any kind of order. 
The pupils climbed in and out the window during school, or as we would say then, during books. 

[1893]

    When I was about seven years old, my sister, Sophronia, - had built a very small playhouse--framed out clapboards 
together at the top and supported at the bottom by two small post-like timbers, one on each side. I was in- 
side this miniature house and flFronialt was cutting up sticks with a hatchet on one of the timbers. I wanted 
to get out of the house, so I put my hands on these timbers that the clapboards leaned against--one hand 
on each side of the door. My left hand was directly under the hatchet where my sister was cutting sticks 
and the hatchet came down on two of my fingers. The third finger was cut off except for a very little skin 
on the underneath side. I ran to Dad who was working on something nearby with my fingers flopping down. 
I was bawling and so was Fronia. Dad picked me up and carried me to the house, got the finger back together 
the best he could and bandaged it. The finger grew back together and never bothered me much, but there 
was always a scar on that finger, but the index finger healed without a scar. Later, I always looked at that 
scar to tell which was my left hand. 

    My Dad had stayed on this place as long as he could stay in one place--it was a long time for him to live 
in one place. This was railroad land. In order to get the railroad through this country, the government gave 
to the railroad specified quarter sections of land through the Ozark hills. Anyone couLd build on this 

- 4 -

land, improve it, and the buildings andimpDovements belonged to the farmer. I do not know how my Dad got 
the place, but I remember he sold the improvements,. and possessions to John Offholder for one-hundred 
dollars. It was the most money I had ever seen at one time and I thought it a colossal sum of money. 

    When Dad sold out, he built a log house on a steep hillside in a ravine that came up from the bottom 
where wenented corn land. We were in the Pruitt School District then, and about four miles from the 
school house. Tlie Pruitts did not care for an education and had only a four-months school in a one-room 
log school-house with split logs and hewn-out puncheons for seats and desks. 

Dad used to go to Rolla sometimes and if I could I always went along. As we went by the Rolla Schooi 
of Mines, I saw the students and learned that when they finished school there, their life was much better 
than the "hf.Ll.cd.Ll.y" farmers. 'I decided, then, that I wanted an education. From then on, I was set on going 
to school, and I went every chance I got, sometimes at great hardship and difficulty. 

    W'e lived in the new log house for one year. The house was not far from the sloughs and stagnant water 
along the bluff. The mosqui1Joes were on the swamps so we were all sick that fall with chills and malaria 
fever. We did not know it, then, but the mosquitoes gave malaria to many each year. 

    We would not have been able to live there and farm the bottom anyway as Bill Wynn died and his son-in-law, 
Frank Hance, got hold of the farm in the bottom. He sold it to George Pruitt, who did not rent to anyone. 
All Mr. Pruitt cared for was making money. He had a daughter that had been married but was divorced. 
(When I was back there at Rolla sometime about 1943, she was on relief, working for the Welfare Office.) 
George Pruitt owned good bottom land up and down the river on both sides as well as a store in Jerome. 
When he died, his estate was valued at over two million dollars. 

-5- 

    We just moved off and left the new house, and I don't think anyone ever moved into the house. We moved into 
a little one-room shack that had been vacant for sometime. I do not remember of ever going to school from this place. 
We did not live here long--not any during the summer. I was nine years old, then, and I remember I had to carry 
water from a spring that was in a steep hollow and down a very steep hill a half mile from the house. 

    From this house, we moved across the river in Pulaska County. Dixon was our post office. This was the only 
time since I was big enough to remember that we did not get our mail at Newburg. 

    This new place was on the ridge and was called the Crane Place. It was too poor to sprout peas. We 
cleared some land in the river bottom about two miles away. It was only a few acres but we got all we raised 
for clearing the land. We were in the Mangy School District here. I went to school there for a part of 
two years. Clara Groover got the Mangy School for one term since she could not get a school to teach e.Ics e to 
where she lived. She was not any better here than she was at the Wynn School and I learned nothing. They did 
have factory-made seats with two pupils to a seat. The large ones in the rear of the school was where two 
Ramsey boys sat and chewed tobacco and tried to spit through a hole in the broken window glass. Most of it 
missed the ho Le and ran down the glass. (Several years ago I hired a student from the Univerpity of Missouri 
to help me when he had time off. While talking to him about his life and mine, I found that he was the grand- 
son of one of the Ramsey boys.) 

    The school discipline was so bad. that we could not learn anything. Then, the directors thought they would 
take a hand in school affairs, and hired a teacher that took a club and beat every kid that made the least 
crooked· move--girls as well as boys. The teacher grabbed one boy coming in from recess and without s ayTng a word, 
whipped and beat the boy until he must have been black and blue. I don't suppose the boy knew what it was for, 
but he asked to leave the room and he never came back. 

-6- 

I don't think he ever went to school a day after that.  The parents in the school district should have tied that 
teacher up and took a horse whip to him. Everyone was too afraid to learn anything. 

     Next, we moved across the river--too far from any school to go. So, I only got to go to school a short 
time that term. The next school year I wanted to go to school so I stayed with my Uncle Vard and went to 
Mangy School again. The directors did not hire the brutual teacher again, but a man teacher 'who was a good 
one. I learned a lot under him, but it was a long way to walk and was a bad winter. I walked and skated up 
the creek on t,he ice and think I was late every morning and sometimes very late. I missed a class or two each 
morning, but learned a lot for the time I wen t for the teacher was good. 

     Uncle Vard and Aunt Martha'did not send my cousins, Minty and Emi t , They felt it -was too bad a winter, but 
they were big enough, and walking to school would not have hurt them any more than playing outside at home. Emit 
got so large and could not read that he 'was ashamed. After that, he would hide out in the woods during school 
time and come out when it was time to go home. He never did learn to read or write. 

The last of' the school year I stayed with Uncle Frank and went to the Wynn School. They had a man 
teacher then, but he did not keep any order'~~'and was poor. The next year (1898) I did not get to go to school. 
My youngest sister died, which was the hardest blow I had ever had up to that time. Her last words was a call 
for me; she wanted to say something to me. They got me, but there were several around1er and she died be- 
fore she was able to tell me what she wanted to. I remember that it was 'two Dr three o'clock in the morning 
when she died. Dad had gone t a Newburg to get a doctor and when he could not get one there, he went to Dixon 
on the train. He could not get one there, either. But Mary had died anyway before a doctor could have got 
there. There were no telephones in the country those da.ys so I got on a horse and went to tell Grandmother, 
and then went across the river to tell UnCle Va I'd and my brother, Albert. 

-7- 

     The next fall Dad sold off most of his meager belongings and was ready to move to the zinc-mining 
district in Jasper County, Missouri. When Dad wanted to move, schooling did not amount to anything. Other- 
wise, he was real good to the family. 

     We went by covered wagon to Jasper County. I had never traveled in a covered wagon and looked forward 
to this trip with wonder and anticipation. The roads were dry and good. We had a good team and one small 
mule with a lop ear. The mule had been hit with something just below the ear and that ear would not stay up. 
I rode the mule the entire distance when I did not walk and lead him. It was through timbered land most of the 
way, and we had no trouble getting kindling and wood to do the cooking over an open fire. Albert did not go on 
this trip but stayed and worked for Uncle Vard, Charley was a baby--less than a year old. Moses and I slept on 
a palet underneath the wagon, I think it took us about two weeks to make the trip from the Gasconade River to 
South Carthage. 

When we got to the mlnlng district, there was a depression and many of the mines were shut down. There 
were no jobs to be found and we had to cut stove wood and haul it to Carthage and peddle it. I got a job 
watching the machinery and property of a large mine that had closed. The pay I received helped us in the 
living expenses. I did not go to school at all that fall or winter. The next fall I went to the Carter 
School. It was in a rough district where a lot of tough kids lived, and fighting among the boys was the 
prominent pasttime. The man teacher kept some order, but he had so many that he could not give much help to 
any. I learned some there, but then we moved to the Prairie Star School District near the Pleas nt Valley 
Thlines, about four miles from Carthage. I did not go to school any more that year.
 
     The next year, 1901, was a dry year. Dad, Moses, and Albert worked at the mines at South Carthage; they 
leased a mining lot and sank a shaft of their own but never got any ore. Later,ore was discovered shallow 
right in the yard where we had Ilved. 

-8- [1901, age 15]

Dad rented a rocky, brushy hillside and I had to do what plowing was done on the land and also cut the 
sprouts and weeds with a hoe. One day I was pulling weeds and the bsrd Lng over made me so sick that I almost 
never made it home. 

     We had a small mule and two pretty good horses and used them to hau l, some mining material from Webb City 
or Carterville. It was from the railroad between the two. It was the only thing that separated the two 
towns. We 'were about fifteen miles from Webb City and Carterville and about twenty miles from Joplin. Some- 
times v\re hauled from Joplin. Trucks had not been invented then; neither were there any gravel or hard- 
surfaced roads although there was a lot of mine gravel available. 

     One day I took one horse and the little mule to Webb City to haul a load to South Carthage. I had just 
started for home when a big ra'in came. The roads became slippery and muddy. The mule gave out and I could 
not get him to go more than a few steps at a time. I got on the mule and tried to get him to go but with poor 
success. It was getting late and there were not many people to meet on the road then. I was :i.n a heck of a 
mess. To my surprise and great enjoyment, I met Dad on old Snip--the other horse he had kept at home to 
hoist dirt out of the shaft they were digging. We turned the mule loose and he followed us home so we 
went right along. 

     I was only fifteen that year and should have been in school but my parents were not interested in my go- 
ing to school. The first year we had moved to the Pleasant Valley zinc-min:ing area I did not go to school 
al though it was in a nice neighborhood and had a nice country school, called Prairie Star. The next school 
year the board hired a young girl from Carthage. She rode to and from school on the inter-urban electric 
line that ran from Carthage to Galena, Kansas. I think a car went each way every half hour. 
Most of the pupils were large for grade school and the teacher let a boy and girl share a double seat 

-9- 

so they spent most of the time necking. The teacher did not seem to want to keep order. I do not think 
the teacher had any morals herself. I did not have a girl friend and did not like to go to school there. 
I was too young for most of the school and too old for the others. Since I felt left out, I quit school and 
went back to Phelps County to visit with my uncles and friends where I was raised. I never c ou Id understand 
why my-parents Le t me do it since the school WCl-S close. I missed the year of schooling. 	. 

The next year, Prairie Star had a good school. All of the older ones; except one, did not come back to 
school. We had a very good teacher--an older woman from Carthage. She was rather hard on me but I had to 
get it. But school had not got far along when Dad had to move ~ There was no use in going when he did, but 
- he took Sophronia and me out of school, and we moved to Col1insville, Oklahoma, which was Indian territory 
then. 

     The trip from Jasper County to Oklahoma was a great deal different from the trip from Phelps County to 
Jasper County, Missouri. Dad had gone to Collinsville, Oklahoma, e....nd rented a farm just about three miles 
south of Collinsville. It was a long, hard trip and there were no improved roads. We had t1NO wagons and 
two teams, but they were not very good. Dad had traded the mule off or given him away. If Dad took a notion 
to get rid of anything, he got rid of it whether he got anything for it or not--I never knew him to make 
a good horse trade. He always got beat. 

     I think that fall vJ'as the wettest Oklahoma evar had. Albert took one wagon and Dad took the other 
with Mother, Sophronia and Charley with him. I walked and drove the cows. We did not have many cattle--I 
think there were four. I remember that ODe cow gave a little milk and I milked her. The cows did not give 
much trouble as they followed the wagons well and did not straY off at night. They stood the walking through 
the mud much better than the horses. There were two suckling colts, but they gave no trouble except that 
they kept their mothers poor. 

-10- 

We crossed the Verdigrees River on a ferry boat. We- drove the'"Ocattle in the river and they swam across. 
The colts were ,put on the ferry but one jumped off in the river. We had to unhook the mare and take her 
down the river to coax the colt out. (That colt was called "TedH and Dad kept him until he was over twenty; 
I do not know which died first--Old Ted or Dad.) The last day of the journey Albert wanted me to get on the 
wagon and drive. I said that I had walked that far-- even at times when I wanted to ride--and I would finish 
the trip walking. I was sure happy when we got to Collinsville and that long walk was over. We could not 
get in the house that Dad had rented so we moved into a shack in Collinsville. 

After we were moved and settled down, I started to school in Collinsville. It was a poor school as 'the man 
- teacher was more interested in courting the older girls than in teaching. School did not last long, but I fin- 
ished out the term. 

     The next fall, Collinsville had a very good teacher from Ohio. His name was Paxton--the only name of the 
early teachers I can remember except Jane Wynn and Clara Groover. I remember their names because they lived 
in our neighborhood and we knew their folks. 

     When the school term was about half-way through, Dad had to move from near Collinsville to near Owasso. 
However, I was able to stay put in the country with an old bachelor, Bob Wynn. I walked about four miles to 
the school and was late every morning except 'when I could catch the freight. The local freight stopped at 
the strip mines south of Collinsville to leave an empty coal car and pick up a loaded one. The conductor let 
us ride the caboose t nt.o tOV'J11. The teacher taught the upper grades and one year of h1gh school. He had 
more than he could do but tried hard. I learn,€'9. something that year. 
	. 
     The next school term I started to the school nearby Owasso, near where the family had moved. It was stjll 
Indian Territory and we had to pay tuition. The teacher 

-11- 

knew little--I doubt if he could have passed an eighth- grade examination. He smoked an old cob-pipe in the 
school room. In the summer he worked on the section. 

Owasso was a tough dead to~m and no one benefitted much from school. 
There was little to do around Owasso, but I landed a job on the railroad with a steam- shovel, loading ba1ast 
(burnt clay) on Cars to put under the ties on the railroad (gravel is used altogether now). This job paid 
one dollar and fifty cents each day. When the shovel had to be taken to the shop for repairs, I quit. 

     Next, I went to the oil field and worked on the pipe line, digging a ditch from Neodeshea to Caney, 
Kansas. The sleeping tents, dining. and cook tent were moved along at about eight- mile jumps, so we did 
not have to walk farther than Ci about four miles. Just before meal time everyone would bunch up at the entrance 
to the dining tent so that wh~n it opened they all rushed in like a grove of hungry hogs. I soon learned 
that I had to be a "hog''", too, if I were to get anything to eat. 

I stayed with the job about four weeks and when I quit I think I had been there longer than any of the 
regular laborers. Each day some quit and some more came in. They were all drifters--men who wanted to 
roam and did not want anything but a place to sleep and something to eat, plus a shirt and a pair of overalls. 
There were a few poor farmers along the route who would wo rk for awhile. 

     When we got to Caney, I went out to tbs tank farm and got a job learning to heat with the Warn City 
Boiler Works. I learned to heat some, then took a job with the tank division of the Standard Oil Company 
heating rivets. That was the best paying job around then; I got $2.35 each day. I worked for Standard 
for over a year and then quit and worked for Righter Conally Calking (jt'was called corking) and got 
$3.50 a day. I saved up some money at that. 

-12- [1907, age 21]

     I had always wanted to go to school and when I saw the University Preparatory School at Tonkawa advertised, 
I quit the tank building and went to Tonkawa. I was 21 years old [in 1907] but registered as 19 as I did not think 
they would let me go to school if I was over 21 years. 

Tonlcawa was in Oklahoma Terri tory then as Oklahoma had not become a state. Oklahoma and Indian Territory united 
that year and became a state (Nov. 1907), and the school changed from a territory to a state-supported school. 

     Under President Kelly the school became one of the best secondary schools in the United States. But politics 
got in and they put Kelly out. Jack Alley came in, but only stayed two years because 'the students all struck 
because too much military drill was forced upon them. I hated and was a lways opposed to the mili tary drill. 
I thought then as I do now--that 'mi1i tary drill is a necessary evil that has no r:tght in the school system. 

     The military drill might have helped me, indirectly, at Tonkawa because after the first year, I played foot- 
ball to get out of taking military drill. I did not think much of football as I could see no sense Ln getting 
bruised and beat up and calling it I1playll. I played center, and never n ade a bad pass that I can remember. 

     I was elected captain the second year- and played tackle. They always had tle football team on the stage 
at least one time during the football season and the captain was required to make a speech. I remembered 
the first fall the team was on the stage and they called for the captain to make a speech; 'he was so stage-struck 
that he couldn't say anything. Presi.dent Kelly, condemned the captain severely for not been able to say 
anything. He ha.d been skipping rhetoric--that was what we ha.d to take when we did not belong to a li terary 
SOCiety. 

     The next fall [1908] I knew ahead of time when the football team was to be on the stage during assembly, 
so I wrote my speech down and 'while I was firing up to heat the buildings in the morning, I learned the speech. 
When I was called on to speak, I had no trouble saying what 
 
-13- 

I wanted to. Since I bad always been a rather green, backward, and shy student, the speech amazed most of 
the students as we11 as the faculty. Kelly was gone then, but Alley was the president and he said in 
assembly that the best speech made that year was by the captain of the football team. 
Shortly after that we had a class meeting and I was nominated and elected president of the Senio;r 
Class. It was quite an honor in that school as the students, especially the seniors, have a lot more to 
say about the school affairs than they do in an ordinary high. school. I "vas also elected president of the 
Ii teraw society and president of the Y.M.C • .!. I had more to do the fourth year at ~ronkawa than anyone could 
do well. On top of' that, I was put on the contest debate team. President Alley wrote in his letter of 
- recommendation that I was the best man debator in school. 

     I was also elected (by a vote twice that for any one else) to give the class orat:i.on. My oration was 
on world peace and against militarism. I was more popular and had more fame my fourth, and my last, 
year at Tonkawa than any other time in my life. It was brought about by my playing football which I 
played because I hated military drill. 

     I took agriculture at Tonkawa and decided I wanted to major in this at college. I wrote to the Agri- 
cultural College of Oklahoma at Stillwater, but they would not give me credit for the military drill I had 
at Tonka'Na. Then, I wrote to the Agricnl tural College at Kansas at Manhattan. Dean Miller, acting Presi- 
dent, in reply wrote that I would receive credit for my mi.li tary training since it was under an army officer. 

     After I had gone to Manhattan one year [1909], Dean Willard was going through the records and found 
where I had been excused from military training. He revoked all my credits for military drill, and I could 
not enroll again until I got my credits restored or registered for military drill. I went to the Command- 
ant, but we would not gi.ve me any credit for the military drill I had had and said too many were get- 
ting excused. I did not like his attihlde and talked rather rough, especially considering he was an army 
officer, wh.Lch didn't enhance my chances of ge tting enrolled, but I was determined not to 'take any more 
military drill and told him so. 

     I then went direct to the President of the College, Henry Jacks'on Waters. He heard my Case and asked how 
old I 1tJas. After I told him, he replied that they had a rule at the College that after a student gets that 
old, he does not have to drill. Waters had had it in college and knew what it was like. He excused all he 
could. He sent a note to the registrar and I never had any more trouble wIth military training. There 
was no training to it--it was just going over the same routine day after day. They have the R.O.T.e. now, 
- which is much better, but many object to that. They train s tuderrts for officers, bu t not many who go to 
college want to become army of{'icers. 

     I thought an agricultural course wou Id be easier than other courses. I was not very good in most sub- 
jects since I had never had the basic tra.ining. I was always very poor in spelling--could not spell the 
common words--but was good in history and could easily remember the dates and· events. But I was best in 
political science and civil government. I often wished I had majored in history and political science and then 
taught that. I think I would have been a good teacher in government and history. People learn best the things 
they are intergsted in, and I could have interested the students in history and govenment. Agricultural 
teaching was new, then, and most did not know what they were teaching. 

I might put an off remark here: That I got the best thing that Kansas State ever had to offer. Vlhen 
I arrived in MaJ1.11a t t an, I went to the Y. M. C .A. where the roomtng places were listed;. Earl Harroff ran on 
to me and said he was looking for a roommate. He knew some very nice people that had come there to keep roomers 
so we went to their place at 929 Vatier St. Earl and 

-15- 

I took a room together with the Nivers, They did not board students then. The house was not modern and 
students did not want to room ,Nt thout furnace heat. They got no other roomers and did not stay in Manhattan 
long. The Nivers were going to run a little hotel in Inman, Kansas, and send their oldest daughter, Ethel, 
to Kansas State to study Home Economics. Mrs. Sells and her daughter rented the house in Manhattan and. 
kept boarders and v?e stayed on and roomed and boarded with them. 

     I had had a very nice girl friend in Tonkawa--the only one I had ever cared about. The girls as a ru Le 
had little use for me as they would vote for me but would not date me. I had a lot of respect for Ethel 
Niver because of her parents. I thought her mother about the noblest woman with the highest ideals of any 
- woman I had ever known; Earl Ha~roff made the boast several times that he would have a girl friend, mean- 
ing Ethel. I decided that I wou Id try to spoil Earl's boasts and begun to date "Earl's girltl and sit up with 
her nights. It was not hard to beat Earl's time, as I learned afterward,since Ethel had decided she would 
not got with any boy except me for that time anyway. I got the best thing that was ever offered at Kansas 
State and Ethel got what she wanted--a "Mrs." [in 1914] instead of a B.S. She has been sorry for that 
ever since and paid dearly for her folly. 

     Because of my experience in firing at Tonkowa, I landed a job at the heating plBnt to earn enough money 
to go to school. I was firing one morning and a coal stoker got stuck. I was trying to get it to work and 
had my hand in the stoker' when a fellow-worker turned the steam on, not looking at what he was doing. It 
caught my right hand and all the flesh was torn off two fingers and my thumb. I was up against it. I 
began to think my schooling was over, but my co-work.ers took up a collection and raised ten dollars for me. 

     Again, President Henry Jackson Waters came to my rescue. He asked Dean McCormick, head of the college 
of Engineering, to give mB a job at something I could 

-16- 

do. The Dean put me to work arranging to display a lot of samples and advertising material various manu- 
facturing companies had sent to the college to get their products before the engineering graduates. 
There were all kinds of trinkets and gadgets--little and big. I worked about a week on arranging them. 
I had a large glass-door case to put many things in and what I could not get in there, I was to arrange 
outside. I thought I had everyt rl ng in perfect order to show it off.to the best advantage. This display 
room was just across the hall from the Dean1s office. About the time I got the display ready, Dean JcCormick 
brought Dean 11il er (in Charge of extension work) into the room to show him the display. Dean Miller looked 
the display over and turned to McCormick and said, tlThat will make a very nice display when you get it 
arranged tn good shapetl• That remark punched a hole in my egotistical ability as an artist in design and 
arrangement. 

     Then, they gave me a little easier job in the heating plant for awhile. I had to get there a little 
earlier and start a small dynamo to furnish 11ght for the boiler room so that the fireman did not have to 
carry a lantern. I kept the dynamo running and cleaned up the engineering building, but I did not have to 
shovel coal. A new engineering building was started the~ and when I left co lege, the engineering and 
boiler rooms were altogether in a different place. 

     I spent the first summer vacation during college at the State Experiment Station at Hays, Kansas. I 
did not learn muc_ about farming or agriculture there. Most of the time I drove one old mule cu'l ti vating the 
trees. They were trying to raise forest trees over the western part of the state. They could get the 
whlte elm to grow along the branch bottoms, but they had no success in growing trees on the upland. The 
Russian wild olive was the only tree, or shrub, t.at made any progress at all. 

-17- 

The next school year [1912] I got a job with George Southern , an undertaker. I stayed at the establish- 
ment at nights and on Sundays to answer the telephone; I also cleaned out the establishment each morning. 
There was not much for me to do, and I did not get much money but got my room and enough for my meals. I kept 
an application at the Y.M.C.A. for odd jobs on Saturdays and some evenings. I boarded at a boarding house 
downtown where they sold meal tickets that they punched each time you ate. I took just two meals a. day and did 
'iiir:i. thou t dinner except on Sunday. On Sunday I ate one meal--dinner. In that way I got through college, but 
I did not have any spending money. 

     The next summer [1913] I was made foreman of the campus squad. Charles Scott, the State Forester, was put in 
charge of the campus, wc.rk l ng under the President, - Henry Jackson Waters. \'!J1IlY Scott picked me out to be 
foreman, 1111 never know. There were others who had been foreman and they were older than I. I thought 
proba.b1y they wanted someone who would be foreman and wo rk , too. 

     We graded and filled in around the new buildings, built some cinder and gravel roads through the campus, 
set out some trees, and pruned trees. That was the dry summer of 1913; water was scarce and rationed, but we 
watered some of the trees to try to keep them alive, but some didn't make it. I received sixty dollars each 
month while the hands under me received forty dollars. I kept on at Southern f s Ftmera1 Parlor and did the work 
there, which also helped me out a little. 

     The Kansas State Agr1cultural College, as it was known then, was only a three-year college. That was 
enough for Agriculture, and I had ha.d a good course tn English and History at Tonkawa. After my gradua- 
tion I took a job teaching agriculture in h1gh school at Medford, Minnesota. My job started there August 1, 
1914, but before going to Medford, I went to my parent's home in Oklahoma. 

-18- [1914, age 28]

     Ethel and I were married the first Christmas [1914] I was at Medford. 

     At Medford, as in all Minnesota high schools, the Agricultural teacher was to teach in the forenoon and 
do extension work in the afternoon. During the entire three month's summer vacBtion, we worked on demonstra- 
tion farms doing.extension work. This farm consisted of five acres. My salary was $1200 annually the first 
year with a five-dollar monthly raise for the second and third year, but I did not stay for the third year. 
That was a good salary for teaching at that time. A posi tion was open in Missouri for teaching agriculture 
at that time but it paid only $750 annually. 

   I think at all high schools the Agricultural teacher was required to teach some other subject. I 
taught Physics and Chemistry at Medford and think I learned more than my pupils. I got along very well 
teaching in high school, but si-nce I had never had - much grade-school training, I was by nature very care- 
less and untidy in my records and appearance. This was a handicap in my teaching ~rofession. 

     I received $25 each month for traveling expenses while doing extension work. That did not pay for 
much traveling. The roads were poor--there was no pavement and little gravel. The automobiles were 
poorly made the1"~ compared to now" and the tires were very poor. Gasoline was not much cheaper the.n now. 
The old Model T was about the only car that one could get over the road with. Vilhen I started at Medford, I 
didn't have a car so that the first month I did a lot of walking from one farm to another. They had a hog 
cholera outbreak, and I was effective in getting the farmers to vaccinate. Farmers thought I was willing 
to work. They had little use for the teaching of farming. I did become popular with the farmers and 
was elected Worthy Master of the Grange, which was a farmer's organization. 

[After that] My wife called me nothing better than her "Worthless Master." 
[Charles, was born in Medford December 20. 1915]

-19- 

     flJTy teaching was not so popular wi t the State Education Department but the people around Medford 
 ept me and I could have stayed there. There was trouble between the Superintendent (who was young and 
new at the job) and the Principal (an older person who had taught for years). The Superintendent accused 
t e Principal of not being loyal to him--vmich she was- not. The Superintendent was new and afraid. I sided 
with the Principal as did the other high school teacherso 

[1916, age 30]

     I took the same kind of job--teaching and doing extension work--at the State Agricultural High School 
at Carrington, North Dakota. The one exception was that I taught Zoology and Botany along with Agriculture. 
The winters were so severe in North Dakota that there was little extension work that could be done except dur- 
ing the summer months. My extension work consisted mostly of helping with the Club work for the boys and girls. 
I was appointed County Club Agent by the United States Department of Agriculture and ..received an extra $5'0 each 
month. I organized the Central North Dakota Livestock Breeders Association and we had a livestock sale. 
I have often vished that I had stayed at Carrington. [Sybil was born there, May 30. 1917]

There were needs for much improvements in farming in North Dakota and I could have probably helped to have 
made some of tlem. The long, cold winters as what drove me away from ~ orth Dakota more than anything else. 
rvithout the money I ,as getting as County Club Agent, I did not get any more as County Agent in Iowa. 

     We were called "county ag en t s" t en, but later they changed the name to 11extension agents!'. We needed 300 
subscribers at five dollars each to keep the program going and deliver the service to the members. That 
took work, day and night. Adams County was a particularly hard county to keep the organization going beCause 
the main newspaper was against the extension program and, particularly, against Ames, the State Agricultural 
CoJlege. I was not a graduate of Ames and that is why I was sent to Adams County. 

-20- 

The story that seve ra'l farmers told me and which I heard at Ames and at the ne spaper office in Corning, 
was that there had been an infection of Hessian fly in Adams County and an extension vorker had come to Adams 
County to see what could be done. The farmernclaimed, according to tl1e story, that the Ames man had recommend- 
ed that their wheat be turned under with a plow. Many farmers had turned their wheat under but some did not, 
and where t ey had not, it made good wheat. 

     Since I had heard some conflicting reports, I asked an entomologist from the college to come down; we Con- 
tacted every farmer t~at ~e could find ~TIO had plowed his wheat under and everyone who had not plowed it 
under. In every case the entomologist had advised not to plow t.e wheat under. We printed t. e report with all 
the interviews. This report g~ve the College of Agriculture a much better standing in Adams County. The 
Hessian fly episode was instigated and kept going by Wysell, editor of the FREE PRESS,mostly for political 
reasons, but also to give a bad name to the State Agricultural College. 

     There we r e outstanding individuals t at I can think of who were willing to work for t.h e welfare and 
tlp-building of the Count.y , I can remember a few names of outstanding ci.tizens: Jerome Smi th, Jim Lynam, 
Dan Turner, Weaver Cooper, Elmer Cooper, Jasper Hunt, Krogh Heat , Fred "haw, Leon Rider, and Alvin Windom. 
They, as re Ll, as others that I can't recall, run through my mind as great men who helped make Adams 
County. There was not IPuch organized opposition to the County except t .. e FREE PRESS newspaper. The Far- 
mer's TInion, at first, was organlzed to oust the County Agent.
 
     W::nen Wysell gave up as edi tor of the ~ PRES13, Albert Gauthier became editor and it became a d:i.ffer- 
ent paper. Gauthier was a democret, but the paper never showed it; he was a Catholic, but you never 
found it out from the paner. Some way or other the ~ PRESSgot all the county and state news, and was. 

-21- [1918, age 32]

a booster for better morals and a higher civilization withou t going against everything. 

     The summer of 1918 was a real dry one for all of southwestern Iowa. There was not enough corn raised 
in Adams County to measure, but much livestock Vilas raIsed. 1 got in feeder-hog buyers and cattle buyers, 
but only a comparatively few were sold. The feed dealers could not, or did not, get corn for feed. 1 
began shipping Ln corn, but could not supply the farmers at first although 1 worked from before daylight 
until after dark helping to load corn from the railroad Cars to the wagons. There were very few trucks 
then and they could not use them. I could not get enough corn to Satisfy the farmers. Then, all at once, 
the weather turned warm, the roads thawed out, and the corn could not be hauled over the roads as there was 
- no gravel or pavement in the county then. The demand for corn fell off and the price dropped--the greatest 
decline in g r e In prices in history. 1 was left holding a hundred thousanp bushels or corn. Those who had 
orders in for corn 'would buy rrom the che ape s t place. 1 had to store the corn whereever 1 could find storage 
.space , Mucb. of i. t was stolen and some spoiled. The Farm Bureau was in debt about thirty-thousand dollars. 
We had it all paid off but five thousand dollars when I quit the Farm Bureau. 
     My successor, Frank Swager, published and told what he paid off, but he never paid off anything--just went 
Ln debt a Ii ttle more all the time. Swager did not do much of anything. 1 was on the board and helped get 
rid of him. He stayed in the county for awhile. 1 do not know what became of him but there were rumors that 
he got mixed up 'wi th another man's. wife and got shot; that he went crazy; and that he got in thfl real estate 
business and became r lch , He was very brillant but ruthless. 1 recommended Ellis Rail to replace SWager, 
but he was not any better since he was too lazy to do anything. 

1 helped organize a great Boys' and Girls' Club In the County. The results of which are still manifest. 

 -22- 

I had a team of 4-H Club members at the International Livestock Show at Chtcago. Adams County had the best 
demonstration team at the State Fair at Des r.1oines. 

     While I was successful in 4-H Club work, it was also because of my leaving the county extension 
work because 0 the dissension caused by it. Ed Hogan's son's steer won first place in the judging at the club's 
s ow, but his son did not win as the county's top club member. O. E. Reed, State Club Agent, had picked the 
county's top club member without mentioning it to me. Reed picked Ralph Van Pelt because he had been in club 
work for a number of years, ad wrjtten his own story, and took care of his calf by himself. Ed Hogan thought 
I had chosen Van Pelt and he wanted me out of county agent. work Hogan got himself elected to the county 
board for t.hat reason. Since I did not care to 'work with him on the board, I quit the extension work and 
bought the Amador Orchard near Carbon. 

     It was in 1922 [age 36] that I started working the Amador Orchard. There had been a late freeze the previous 
spring that killed all the apples but that year there was a bumper apple crop. We did well on the farm that 
first year, and we had fair crops for about seven years. But I branched out too much--rented other land, 
raised more cattle and hogs, and did not take Care of the orchard as it ihould have been cared for. I had 
not taken any horticulture in school, did not know enoueh about fruit growing, and was not interested 
enough in fruit. 

[Helen born in April 21, 1924, and two years later, James on April 22, 1926]. 
[James and Duane were also born while we were in Adams County]

     We had a very poor dwelling house [it was small] so I sold the 
forty acres I had in Oklahoma--the biggest financial mistake I ever made--and built a new house. The car- 
penter I hired disregarded our plans and but I t a house like the one he had built in t own , As a result, the 
house cost us about twice what I had figured on paying for the house. 

     We had never had a bad killing frost before, but that year there came a late frost that got many of . 
the apples. The following spring I was cleaning up 

-23- 

some old boards left from the building, and stepped on a large nail, running it almost through my foot 
(the doctor had to cut the hole through). Since I was laid up at spraying time and unable to spray for 
about four weeks, the scab got so bad it killed some of the trees and most of the apples that year. The 
scab also had injured the twigs so bad that there were but few apples the next year. Scab hurts nen 
Davis apples more than other Varieties and my orchard was about two-thirds Ben Davis (or Gano). 
I was in real financial difficulty, then, and it became necessary to give up the farm. 

     The company rented the orchard to a worthless coal digger who did not know or care anything about an 
orchard. He only wanted the house. The orchard went from bad to worse and soon played out altogether. 
- That was in tl e depression years and apples would not pay for their care, especially Ben Davis. The last I 
grew on the farm there had not paid for the spraying. 

     I rented an apple orchard from Judge Ryan in Doniphan County, near Troy, Kansas, and we moved there in 
the spring of 1933 [age 45]. Although we were in the fruit growers association, they cuu:ti not sell the apples. 
I had to work on relief to live. 'e were there in 1934 when everything dried up--there was no corn nor 
apples either. The next year was a real wet year but I did raise some apples, which I sold to get money to 
move to IMssouri. 

     We moved to Missouri in the spring of 1936 to get near the Universtiy. I rented a large pasture farm 
near Bro~ms Station from the Allstate Insurance Company, which was owned by Sears Roebuck and Company. 
This year (1936) was another dry year so there was little pasture. I was stuck with the rent but re- 
ceived no returns. 

     Mrs. Niver, my mother-in-law, gave us a hundred sixty acres of land in western Kansas which her hus- 
band had homesteaded. We traded that property for the 

-24- [1936, age 48]

present Missouri farm. There was no money involved since the owners were about to lose the farm and the 
160 acres in Kansas was good only to pay taxes on. The land of the present farm was, then, poor and full 
of ditches but did give us a home to live in close to the University of Missouri. The farm had been owned 
by several who got what they cou.ld from the land but could not make anything so gave it up and another one 
tried it. It was hard making anything on it for the first few years; sometimes we barely had enough to eat. 

We rented some ground in the Missouri River bottom, but it was so far to go that it did not pay. I rented 
an apple orchard near Columbia for one year, but it was run-down and so far away that it did not pay. 

     One of the most important phases in my life was the On-The-Farm-Training of veterans after World War 
- II. I had plenty of boys to take care of the home farm, and agricultural teachers were scarce because 
of the extra demand for them In the teaching of all the veterans who could not go to college. The U.S. 
Congress passed a law to pay the veterans to go on to college--to compensate for their having to give up 
college to go into the military service. In order to help the ones who could not go on to college, they 
passed a law paying the veterans for On-The-Job-Training, which included all kinds of skilled work and 
manual labor. Farming got more than any other branch of the training. Each school that had an On-The-
Farm-Training ~~acher had to be under a school that had a Vocation/!griculture Teacher. 

     I taught for four years at Prairie Home and was under the Vocational Agriculture Teacher at Pilot 
Grove and was hired by the Pilot Grove Board of Education. Between twenty and thirty students enrolled 
in each class. All enrolled for the money which was paid for attending. Some felt worth it without the 
pay; some showed interest and tried out what they learned; one or two really benefitted from the course. 
The veterans who took this course received no credit toward a high school or college degree, but the ones 

-25- 

in my class had to keep a notebook (:f'"u.rnished by the government) and keep a record of important things. 

     I divided the teaching part into different subjects: Feed and Feeding, Soils, Farm Management, Hay 
Crops and Roughage, Grain Orops. I taught some courses besides agricultural subjects, such as physics, chem- 
istry, zoology" and botany. 'l'here is a lot of each one of these subjects that is used in agriculture. 
I made one outline to fill in from Henryts "Feeds and Feeding!!. The student had to read the book and study 
it to fill in the answers. This way they got something from it. 

     Some of the veterans had such a meager education that they could not get anything unless they did have 
some help with the text. This was a good way to help the veteran with his education. But just to have a 
- meeting and everyone talk about different subjects (which they called "discussion"), as was done in some 
classes which I visited, was a waste of time and effort. 

One trouble I had was that some veterans wanted to stay in the class after their time was up. I never 
had much success with teaching the individual on his farm. I just was not able to find the problem and 
teach it to the farmer so that he would get it. I did get some of them to use some 11me and grow some 
alfalfa. Alfalfa got started in there at that time. I also helped a lot on erosion by terracing, contouring, 
and strip farming. 

It is easy to look back and see your mistakes. When I came back to the farm, there were ditches ten 
feet in places. I never could farm with the crooked conventional terrace. . :'My field was not so wide so I 
made a straight-parallel terrace, and where the terrace crossed the ditch, I made a small pond--the em- 
b ankmen t of the pond was to be wher-e the terrace was. This soon filled in the ditches above the ~erraces, 
and we could then fil1 in the ditches and farm straight across. We could soon scrape the bottom of the dams' 
down and farm most all of it. The ditches are not so hard to keep out if straw, manure, and weeds are put 
on when the ditch first starts. I put most all the nouth land in hay and pasture. 

-26- 

     We had a hard time to hold onto the farm, keep the kids in school, and make a living. All through 
those hard days of the depression, my life-companion did not complain or threaten to leave me as many 
women did their husbands. I think she is better off in the end, aside from living with a worthless hus- 
band, for she has not suffered so much. There are a lot of things worse than being poor financially. 
There have been no deaths or serious sickness in our family. We have never had a doctor in the house ex- 
cept when a child was born--a record for a family of nine children. 

     That record of no doctor in the house applies only to our children. We had a doctor in the house several 
times for me. I have always had a tendency to get hurt-- sometimes pretty bad. The one causing the 
greatest grief and financial loss was the time I stepped on the nail while in Iowa (previously mentioned). I 
got run-over by a pick-up truck at the intersection of U.S. Highways 40 and 63 on the north edge of Columbia. 
My left leg was badly bruised; my right leg was fractured, and three ribs were fractured. I was in the 
hospital most of the winter. 

     Also in Iowa, one time I was trying to head a steer on the hillside. The ground was froze solid 
and slick. The mare I was riding was not shod, and she slipped so she did not want to go fast enough to 
head the steer. I took the switch to her and made her go. She slipped and fell on my leg.. It fra.ctured 
my knee joint enough so I had to go into Corning to the doctor. I was telling the doctor about the mare 
not wanting to go and my m~ting her go against her will. The doctor looked at me and said, "If you 
would have used good horse sense, you wouldn't have been hurt". That was true of most times I got hurt, 
except, maybe, when I was beaten up by a bunch of hoodlums one Halloween night. 

     As a child, I was hurt several times. In addition to the time I wrote about when I put my fingers under. 
the hatchet that Sophronia was cutting with, I hurt 

-27~ 

myself at the last house we lived in while in the Ozarks. I jumped off the top of a rail fence and my 
left heel landed on an upturned nail, went through the flesh and into the bone. I do not think I ever 
got an infection from it; I guess, because the nail was out in the open sunshine. However, that heel has 
bothered me at times and sometimes I had to walk on my toes of my left foot until I was grown. I pre- 
viously wrote about my right hand gettlng stuck in the stoker while firing in college. 

     The most recent "hurt" and one that has handicapped me most for the longest period was when I hurt 
my eye. I was trying to drive a nail in a hard oak board when the hammer glanced off the nail and sent 
the nail flying right against my eye. ,I knew it hurt some and I could not see well but thought it would 
soon get all right again. But'it never did and I became practically blind in that eye. A cataract 
formed on the injured eye and,glaucoma set in. If I had two eyes, even though they both had cataracts, 
I could have one removed and if the operation failed, I would have the other eye to use. But the way it is, 
if the operation failed, I would be blind. The eye doctor does not want to risk it. I have to go around 
more than half blind and am handicapped in everything. I shall have to take the risk and have the cataract 
removed sometime. I guess I will have to put drops for glaucoma in my eye as long as I live. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My first farming I can remember was with an olliver Chilled I:flPlow.  It. was made out of cast iron. A 
steel plow would soon wear out in those flint rocks' There was roots and stumps, so we could not use 
a om row cultivator ,We used the double shovel. It consisted of two shovel fastened together on a frame 
or foot piece ,And two handles added.  It,was pulled with one horse and took one half row at a time. 
We had to go one round to cultivate one row. The 'horse would walk in the center' between the rows. I 
had to pull on the horse all the time and try to hold the horse over at the same time.

I remember when dad traded old queen off fD d old S?W.~:t- mother ask me if ~ didn't hate it. I lied and 
"said I ~":~;J,.told not mind Then I went and hid to hide my tears.•. was about ten years old then .•... 
old queen must have oeen twenty. 

We had the one row cultivator ,with a tongue in it. When the corn was little one boy would sit on the 
tongue and drive the team. 'I'hen the tong~ess cultivator come out. If you turned too short or let one 
horse get too far ahead of the other the cultivator would fall over. lJut it was quite an improvement the 
double shovel, But Dad never cared for improvemets and he still clung to the double shovel. He cultivated the corn a lot by 

harrowing it. He had thp-. old A-harrow. 8 took the front tooth out of the 
center and stradle the row harrowing two middles. cae did not have weed killer then.:'-kP had to plant 
the corn so we could cultivate it both vvays• 'He marked the ground offNi th marks, just as far apart 
as the rows. Then a boy would sit on the planter tongue and jerk the leaver and let the corn drop every 
time we crossed a mark. We did not always get the' cross rows straight, but s'i'raight enough so that 
we could get thru cross:::yvi se • &;-

Then", the che ck ':'iire was invented. Thi s was a wire 
.. d th a r.not every t\fee and half feet t the distance between rows • .If'Ae 
~,~ we did not get the same tension on the check wire, or if it ~ 
, __ ';0 wQJJJg_,S~ ch on s."..stalk or c~o~ it wou Ld t nrou; the x o» ou~ of,j o~b:.tThe
'Thst way, seems to be, to dr11.L the corn W:t- put-on a weed killer,  
that wiLl not last long, and cultivate the corn one time •• tee us~ to 
cu Lt i, vate the corn four times.-three times was the standard.,. One 
if- \ t.i.me...--t.he 	w ay.-i-,t-.wafr--~l8:nt-eQ,~- . .cne.. t, i.ma._,cros scwa-y•s-'• and'" t•hea.-ag.ai.n"t-M 
•l  wa.v...JJ:_~~§-D.l~?'Jlt.~,d~ Ordinari1y the cultivating does not do any good if 
there are no weeds •• rl'ie use a lot of fertilizer nO'/1 and raise more than 
twice the corn on the acre we use to. As long as we feed cattle end hogs,
corn will be our most paying crop in the corn belt. 

The farmers in the corn belt are the most prosperous of any farmers , except where there 
just a fel, isolated farmer's, as in the citrous section, or the peach  
section of ,the south, when they happen to get a crop. When a family 
moves on the farm, they must consider the better 'living condiflions on 
the farm. A great'-percentage fo the farming is done now by people 
who work in towns, i~ 'factories, processing plants, packaging farm 
product and the like.