The Rose Still Grows Beyond the Wall

Photography by Christine Renee McClintock copyright 2010, 2011.

The Rose Still Grows Beyond the Wall

Near a shady wall a rose once grew,

Budded and blossomed in God's free light:

Watered and fed by morning dew,

Shedding its sweetness day and night.

As it grew and blossomed fair and tall,

Slowly rising to loftier height,

It came to a crevice in the wall,

Through which there shone a beam of light.

Onward it crept with added strength

With never a thought of fear or pride,

It followed the light through the crevice length,

And unfolded itself on the other side.

The light, the dew, the broadening view

Were found the same as they were before.

And it lost itself in beauties new.

Breathing its fragrance more and more.

Shall claim of death cause us to grieve,

And make our courage faint or fall?

Nay, let us faith and hope receive,

The rose still grows beyond the wall.

Scattering fragrance far and wide,

Just as it did in days of yore.

Just as it did on the other side,

Just as it will forevermore.

Author Unknown

Walker Family Narrative 1823 - 1955

This story was found in family papers. By reading it, I can attest the usage of grammar and language appears to be genuine as does the telling in the stories. I myself am a writer, and wish to achnowledge this accounting for posterity. Lilla Mae Walker in this narrative story is my Great Grandmother. This story is copyrighted under the Laws of the United States of America. 2011 by Christine Renee McClintock Hudspeth. All rights reserved. Use of this story may be granted with permission by myself for use by family the N.S.D.A.R. or the U.D.C. for educational and historical preservation only. No use of this narrative maybe excercised by anyone for commercial purposes.

Enjoy, This is a good telling

Christine Renee McClintock Hudspeth

___________________________________

"The Walker Family"

"Dr. John Wesley Walker was born in Georgia on March 14, 1823. His wife Lucinda Clara Council Culpepper, was also born in Georgia on April 1, 1832. They were married in 1848. While living in Georgia, John Wesley and Lucinda had five children - Evgelina, John , Anna, and Sarah Jane. Dr. Walker Attended medical school in Atlanta but he left Georgia in 1857 or 1858. For awhile they settled in Louisiana, where three boys were born - Edward, William and Robert Lee. They brought with the a Negro house servant named Delphina, who had been with the family for most, if not all of her life. The 1858 census shows that she was 23 years , and in 1864, gave birth to a baby girl name Olla. Mother and daughter were still with the family when the 1880 census was taken. Their whereabouts are unknown after this date.

After the Civil War, the Walker family moved from Louisiana to Texas by covered wagon, and lived in Larmar County for about seven years. It wqas here that Joseph Price Walker was born on March 3 1870. In 1871, the family moved to Black Fork, Arkansas where Dr. Walker practiced medicine as a country doctor and farmed until 1886. Two litle girls were born in Arkansas - Lilla Mae and Leana. The Walkers then moved to Cowlington, Oklahoma, where John Wesley died on November 18, 1887. He is buried in Short Mountain Cemetery. His wife, Lucinda survived him by nine years. She died on July 22, 1896 after a move to Old Brooken, Oklahoma. She is buried there.

Their ninth child, Joseph Price Walker married Mary Melissa Black in 1889, and there were four children by this union. IN 1809, Mary died leaving four small, Sudia May was only eighteen months old when her mother died. Mary Melissa is buried in Brooken Cemetery. Three months after her death, Nancy Isabell Henderson became the wife of Joe Walker (Joseph Price Walker), and the instant mother of the four children.

Nancy Isabell and Joe had nine children, seven of which lived to adulthood. Their children were born in the following order - Climmie, Everett, Ora Victoria, Stella, Tollie, Clyde, Neoma, Leona and Uhlan. Ora Victoria and Clemmie died before they were a year old. It is believed that Ora just failed to thrived after she was born, and climmie died of pneumonia. Uhlan remembers sitting on his father's kneww and listening to stories he and his brother Robert Lee would tell. "Robert was five years older than my father. When he was young, Uncle Bob always had a good pocket knife and always enjoyed whittled his way out. My grandfather told Papa and Uncle Bob to cut their own switches for punishment for fighting. Uncle Bob cut under the bark of his switch all the way around from end to end, so that when Grandpa hit him with it, the switch flew to pieces. The fur did fly after they waited for Grandpa to get his own switches. Since Grandpa called Uncle Bob, "General", each time Grandpa hit him, Uncle Bob would Yell, "NO, Papa, you're going to kill your General!"

Two sisters, whose names I've forgotten, lived across the corn field, and always came to Grandpa's house, around the corn field, to get milk since they had no cow. Uncle Bob was sweet on one of the girls. There was a tree that leaned over the trail so Bob climbed up in the stree one evening. When the girls walked under the tree on their way home, He jumped out with the intention of grabbing the sister he was sweet on, and he expected the other girl to run off and leave them alone. However, his plan id not work. Both girls beat him up with the milk buckets, spilling all the milk!"

After Joe Walker married Nancy Isabell, and they were living in Eastern Oklahoma, he met Sam and Bell Starr. Uhlan Walker tell the story like this, "Papa did a lot of hunting and would often meet Sam Starr in the woods where Sam would ask Papa if he had see the 'G...D..Marshal?' He said there was an old hallow tree that Sam Starr awould get in if it was raining, and one times lightening struck the old tree and knocked Sam Starr out. Sam was carrying a pearl handled .45 pistol at the time. The force of the lightening knocked the handles off the pistol. Sam later gave Papa the gun. Papa said Sam also played the fiddle for dances, and Bell would dance with the boys, but Sam's eyes never left her on the dance floor. Papa often told us that he had danced with Bell Starr. In 1959, my half brother, Vonnie C. Walker, and I went to see his mother's grave and out Grandmother Walker's grave. Old Brooken Centery is where they are both buried. It is just across the Canadian River from Younger Bend. Younger Bend was where Star Bell and her outlaws, as well as other old Oklahoma bad men and lawmen lived. It was only a few miles from where Papa had lived, "as the crow flies.' We stopped in Porum, Oklahoma with the intention of finding her grave. We asked the barber who owned the land where Bell Starr was buried. His son took us on a half mile walk through a pasture to the grave. They had erected a fence around the grave and piled brush over it to keep people from destorying it. The tombstone was made of native stone and even thought it was broken, ther ewas enough left to tell that it was hers. The barber had many old pictures of her, other outlaws and some U.S. Marshals.

Some years back, I read a story in the Ture West Magazine or Frontier Times about an Indian by the name of Simon Lewis. He had been convicted of a crime but was turned loose to gather his crop. I have heard my father tell that story many times. He said that he tried to get Simon to go west and escape into some other Indian nation. The Sheriff wouldn't come after him if he ran away. But Somon said, "No, no white boy. Me born here, me live here, me die here."

In December, 1899, Joe Walker moved up to Midland, Oklahoma which was in the Chickosaw Nation of Indian Territorry and bought a drug store there. At the time doctors officed in the drug stores and tow them, Dr. H.A. Kyle and Dr. J.W. Crews, took Joe Walker under their wings and instructed him about medicine so thawt he could become a druggist. He became on of the first licensed druggist in the Indian Territory on July 2, 1907. The Indian Territory became the State of Oklahoma in 1908. JOe also was a notery public. Uhlan remembers, "in the early years Papa could hypotize people. Once a man name Wyle Florance came told him from Midland. His wife had left him and taken their two little girls to Texas, He asked Papa to hypnotize him and send his mind to Texas to see his little girls. Mr. Florance told him how the girls were dressed and later, in checking with mother, he verifed that he ahd been right about every detail. All this happened befor I was born, bu my older brothers and sisters remember hearing him tell these stories. Papa stopped hypnotising people before I was born. He became concerned that somthing might happend to him wihle someone was under, and they might never wake up."

Mary Angell, a relative of the family, was raised in Maxwell, Oklahoma with the older Walker Boys and Stella, She and Stella were good friends and corresponded until Stella's death in 1994. Mary remembered that Joe Walker was a Justice of the Peace in Maxwell. When she was a little girl, her parents told her that a case was being tried in Joe Walker's court. He also performed the wedding ceremony for her sister Rachel in 1912. Mary recalled that Mr. Walker would pay her sister and her to discard medicine bottles they found in trash dumps around town. He would clean them and use th ebottles again. She remembered buying several ribbons for her hair and the best gum she ever found in her life. California Fruit, with the money they received when they sold the bottles back to Mr. Walker.

The railraod bypassed Midland by one and a half miles in 1907, so Joe bought 160 acres of land at Maxwell, Oklahoma. He moved the family and the drugstore about eighteen miles north. They stayed there until 1920. When Maxwell started declining, Joe visited Stratford and Vanoss, trying to determine which one would be the best location for him to move this store and family. He decided to move to Vanoss because it appeared that Vanoss had a more properous future than Stratford. He built a brick store there for about $500.00. In 1926, a smallpox epidemic hit Vanoss. Three or four member of the Walker family contracted the disease. Joe Walker doctored them himself. The family lived just one block form the railroad, and there were always hobos coming to the house looking for food. One happened along while the Walker house was quarantined. Vonnie went to the door with the white salve all over him, and told the hobo that there was pox in the house. The hobo backed off the three foot high porch, fell over backwards, got up, and ran down the street. There were no more hobos at the door for awhile.

Uhlan Walker recalls, "My father was a pretty fair country doctor, and a lot of people came to him with their ailments. One time a woman who was having bouts of hysteria came to my father for help. Papa mixed him up baking soda and other harmless ingredients into capsules and gave them to the woman. He told her to take one whenever she felt a fit coming on. She swore she never had another fit of hysteria again.

In the winter of 1924, a family traveling through the country in an old touring car with quilts hung up on the sides to keep out thecold, came to our door in the middle of the night. Their three children were sleeping in the back of the car under heavy quilts and were very sick. WE all got up and built a fire, but one of the children wa salready dead. They had carbon monoxide poisoning from the car. We were up the rest of the night doctoring the other two children. The next morining, after burying their child, the family continued on their journey.

When I was seven or eight years odl, my friend, Earl Baker and I were always out roaming around. We found a washout behind a lady's house that was full of discarded medicine bottles. She was a habitual user of paregoric and apparently was addicted to the drug. Earl and I took tow tow sacks and my little red wagon, we filled them iwth bottles from the washout, cleaned them, and sold them back to Papa. There were a lot more bottles left in the washout, but the lady ran us off when we went back to another load. That ended our bottle project.

About this same time, I was palying outside out front yard, and I saw Mrs. Walter Black run out of her back door in flames. She ahd stated to cook supper on the wood sotve and spilled kerosene on her dress. She caught fire and was running for help. She ran across the street and fell in front of her barn. I called my mother, and she and several neighbors tried to help Mrs. Black, but she died of the severe burns.

Since Papa wa snot a good driver, my rothers taught me to drive at an early age. When I was thriteen or fourteen, I would take Papa to the homes of people who owed him money. He would take chickens, cured meat, hay, almost anything they could give to pay on the debt. Most of the time, they paid nothing. He never would turn them away when they came to his sotre later for more medicine, evenif their bills were never paid. Several of his l3dgers have servived and are full of unpaid bills. His Poison Record Book list the drugs signed for by his customers, with notes beside them indicating thier use. Some were for headaches, some were for habitual use. One lady signed for 2 oz. of paregoric almost every day for a long time. The government didn't regulate howm uch or what drugs Papa dispensed. The only requirement was that Papa record the sale of the drugs.

Tom Cushman is a barber at Sherwood Shores, Texas. He knew my fahter all of his life. He told me that he went to Papa years ago with a snue problem. Papa gave him something that stopped it, and he never had it again. Papa made a sure fire rat pointon in his drugstore and concocted his own cough syrup in three strengths. They were labeled, 'child', 'mild', and 'the one that will stop your cough.' In the 1940's, the government charged it's policy concerning the dispensing of drugs. It became a requirement that durggist write a formal perscription before treating customers for their ailments.

Papa always carried an old .45 Colt to and from the store and slept with it under his pillow. He didn't leave money in the store at night. My older brothers and sisters said he always had the gun with him for as long as they could remember.

In the late 1920's, three stores and the bank of the east side, but we could not tell if our store was part of the fire from our house. I was too young to go with Papa an dmy oder brothers to check onour store. There was no fire equipment, so all the townspeople could do was watch one side of the stree burn to the ground.

When the highway from Ada to Stratford was built, it bypassed Vancoss by two and a half miles, so Joe Walker moved hsi family and house to Garr corner and buildt a concret block store there. It took thgree day sto move the house the two and a half miles. They pulled the house with a tractor, and the wheels under the house were wooden. Whenever the tractor and the house came to a bridge, the house would be too wide for the bridge, so the railing on the bridge would have to be removed. In order to protect their possessions and also have a place to stay, the older Walker brothers slept in the house at night while they were in the process of moving it. Joe Walker retired in 1944 and moved to Ada, Oklahoma. He passed away in 1955, and Nancy Isabell lived towo years after his death. They are buried at Old midland Cemetery. Their deaths marked the end of a liftetime of hard work, sacrifice, and dedication to God and family.

They were part of the fabric of Oklahoma history as it change from Indian Territory to a modern state....

Meditation on Life

This is an exceptional piece, beautiful and full of meditative sight and sound. Take a moment to realize that you are connected to this world in such a marvelous way. You are a child of God. No less important than anyone else and just as special.

Peace be with you.

The Bridge - By Christine Renee McClintock

Photography by Colorado Hummingbird, Copyright 2011

The Bridge

Two friends stand firmly apart,

both have feelings and a broken heart.

One waits upon the other for mending words

Nothing shall come to pass because no one learns,

that only when we bend and compromise

do we learn to forgive and heal.

Only then can friends again find peace on the other side.

"Poetry of the Heart" by Christine Renee McClintock

Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.

A Day For Mourning In Japan - Record 8.9 Earthquake

Tragedy struck the country of Japan today with the worst magnitude earthquake in Japanese history. On Friday afternoon, at 2:46 p.m. Japan time, the first earthquake struck measuring an 8.9 magnitude. At least a hundred aftershocks have been felt. It is the strongest ever recorded in Japan and triggered devastating tsunamis that sent walls of water washing over coastal cities. Tsunami warnings and high waves reached as far as the West Coast of the United States.

News on the Internet showed the devastation. My prayers and thoughts are with the people of Japan.


The song in the above video is Sakura, Sakura, as part of the Oyasumi Album by Aiko Shimada

and Elizabeth Falconer.

First Reports on Earthquake

One paper crane made today, 999 more to go.

INSPIRATIONAL Hummingbirds

It is with great pleasure, that I share my hummingbirds. I call them all, 'birds I have met' because my love for hummingbirds began when I was a mere child. I have followed them in pictures and books, learning everything I could about them.

Thus the nickname, Colorado Hummingbird.

Please enjoy this reflective music as well.. It is called China Moon. I had intended on using the music to Seals and Croft's, 'Hummingbird', but alas the rights it are not available for use.


Enjoy....I am Colorado Hummingbird.