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By the time the three of us got out to New Zion Cemetery, Grandpa George had been in the ground half a century but surprisingly it wasn’t difficult to locate his grave, unmarked though it was, because my father and his brother-in-law Earl Strong had attended the old man’s burial and remembered key details of its location. According to Daddy and Uncle Earl, Grandpa George had been buried beside Earl’s brother Garl Strong, who had died of paint poisoning in Illinois and been buried in New Zion Cemetery four miles south and east of Chandler in 1940. Garl was only 26 when he died, but he’d been spray painting without a mask and fatally and far too long.
Garl Strong was born in 1914 in Pontiac Missouri, one of twelve siblings, three of whom died in infancy. In 1937 he married Cleo Anderson in Kendrick, a small town about
Garl Strong wedding photo, 1937
ten miles northeast of Chandler. His obituary reports:
Special music sung by quartet composed of R. B. Condry, Emmitt and Letha Smith, with Gertrude Agee of Stroud at the piano. He was employed as a painter for the Magnolia Petroleum company at Centralia Ill., and he is survived by his wife, parents, and siblings. (Chandler News-Publicist, 29 Aug. 1940)
The name R. B. Condry is a familiar one for Lincoln County families familiar with quartet singing (see https://uenowayne.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-oak-grove-quartets.html). The comforting beliefs reflected in the gospel music are strongly suggested by the name of the cemetery where Garl was buried--New Zion. At the end of his young life, ravaged by poison, Garl had come home to rest in Zion, named for one of the hills of Jerusalem on which the city of David was built.
When he died in August 1940, the Great Depression had already begun to lift in the manufacturing parts of the United States, but the lift had yet to be felt in agricultural states like Oklahoma. Times were still hard and grave plots dirt cheap. When Earl went out to Zion to buy a plot for Garl, he bought two of them side by side, the other one being for Grandpa George, who by this time in his life was very weak. (He would die eight months later.) Garl’s grave received only a temporary marker, and when it disappeared George's grave like Garl’s was unmarked. Unmarked but unforgotten, for everyone who attended recalled that he was buried beside Garl Strong, and a few of these were still alive in 1991 when I began to investigate the burials. I would have faced a hopeless situation except for the fact that two of the attendees were close family--my dad Archie Pounds and his brother-in-law Earl Strong, who was Garl’s brother. Country people of their generation still retained that marvelous faculty of memory that seemingly could hold events and places for a lifetime a faculty that today is rapidly being eroded by digital media which require no effort to produce nor convey any feeling for the past. Digital media capture information, not feeling. With their undimmed memories, Daddy and Earl walked into New Zion, stopped for a moment to orient themselves, then in spite of the passage of fifty years walked directly to the site of the double grave. There they kicked a few leaves around and then agreed, “this is it.” Their only pointers had been the older trees, oak and elm, which they remembered.
Impressive as this feat was, they still confronted a seemingly hopeless situation, for while the mounds of the two graves were visible, there was no way to determine who was buried in which one. Here they were blessed with a stroke of good fortune. Usually even old rural cemeteries at first have a record that is kept of the graves purchased and the purchaser. This is called the cemetery book. Almost every rural cemetery had one at its inception, for it is a record of land purchases, but over the years they have a tendency to disappear. Someone borrows it and doesn’t return it, and that’s when it says farewell. The person who keeps the record is called the sexton. After the passage of many decades, it’s hard to identify him (never her), and harder still to find the book. I have worked with Lincoln County cemeteries for close to forty years, and in that time I have located two cemetery books, one for Pleasant Ridge Cemetery, kept by my cousin Lyndon Goble (and now by his granddaughter), and the other kept by Warren Nelson for--guess!-- for New Zion Cemetery. In 1991, I was just getting started working with cemeteries and genealogy and had no way to recognize our good fortune. Looking back at it now after the passage of forty-five years, it seems little short of miraculous.
Daddy and Uncle Earl somehow located the sexton, whose name was Warren Nelson, and he readily pointed out in the cemetery book which was Garl’s grave and which belonged to Grandpa George. The next step was more bureaucratic than adventurous. Of course I notified the family members, almost all like myself grandchildren of George, but by 1991 there were not many of them left. These cousins too had mostly died or moved away. Upon being notified by mail, they were responsive, but here I had to confront the limitations of my own personality. I have neither talent for nor interest in bureaucratic work, so I let this job slide and paid for the stone myself. I received two or three checks and deposited them to my account, but they were small checks and didn’t make much of a dent in the three hundred dollars the mortuary company wanted to erect a stone. I had a good income in those days and didn’t think twice about paying for the marker. A flat stone was set in place to mark the final resting place of the man from whom all the Poundses in Lincoln County descended. At the bottom of the stone, beneath the name and dates, is inscribed "Rest in peace."
The injunction to Rest in Peace sounds neutral enough, and neutrality was the effect we were seeking, but this doesn’t mean that any of his children felt neutral. On the contrary, his great sin was clearly remembered by the four older of the eight children who had to suffer the consequences, but as the writer of this commemorative essay, I would first like to put together a short collage of the good memories, a series of stories of the sort one might anticipate hearing at a funeral. Then we’ll get to the darker stuff.
What follows is a conversation between Fred "Buster" Pounds and Irene Pounds Dodson, Tulsa Oklahoma, August 1990. They are both George’s grandchildren and knew him well. At the end, the speaker switches to Earl Strong.
Conversation between Cousins Buster and Irene
Buster: Grandpa George was a real gambler, liked to play poker. He'd go into town and stay all day. Even after his wife died and the kids were small, he'd leave them all out there, even on bad winter days, and go into town. One time Tom get very sick in the winter, had measles or something and about died, so he was an invalid a long time. He made himself a fiddle out of a cigar box and some horse hair, and he'd practice on it. That was how he learned to play the fiddle. After Tom got married, Grandpa'd go over at Tom's or somewhere and get into a horseshoe game. After a throw, he'd go to the stake, down on his knees and say, "Now this one here's about that much further than yours.
Irene: You know Grandpa Westfall argued too. He had a temper.
Buster: Oh boy, if he was a quarter inch he'd say "That's mine!"
Irene: Daddy was like that. Boy, Daddy'd play for blood when he
played cards and dominoes. Andy was the same way. They'd just get
so mad if they couldn't win. But you know Grandpa Pounds he wasn't
as well as Grandpa Westfall. He had something wrong with his leg. He
used a cane, and he couldn't get down in the garden and work like
Grandpa Westfall.
I remember he and Grandpa George liked to play dominoes when
Grandpa George stayed with us. One of them would get mad and
throw the dominoes over the fence. Then the next day they'd both be
back out there looking for them. Once though, it rained during the
night, and washed the spots off the dominoes. Mama told me about
this. She stood in the kitchen washing dishes and looked out the
window, and she saw them out there painting the spots back on.
Buster: If he could find a poker game somewhere, that's where
you'd find him. Dad said ever since he could remember Grandpa
would get in the horse and buggy and take off, go to town and find a
poker game. He'd be gone two or three days at a time.
I'll tell you a good story about Granddad Pounds--this is the truth
too. We was on that ole farm up there, and there was a dadgummed ole
dog come to the house, just an ole cur dog. He looked like a bird dog--
he was speckled and had that tail stickin up in the air, and he was
starved to death. Granddad got out there and got to feedin him. He got
that ole dog up in pretty good shape. Dad went to town with a load of
cotton one day, and Granddad said he was gonna take that dog to town
and sell him. Dad said, "Why, you can't get nothin out of that dog."
Grandpa put that ole dog up in the wagon in that wagon-load of cotton
and went to town, and Dad said he was a-walkin up the street.
Granddad had a chain on that dog, collar and chain--boy he looked like
a real good one. Ole boy come along and looked at him, said what'd
you take for that dog? Granddad said, "Well, I'll take ten dollars." So
the ole boy just paid him [laughs]. And that dog wasn't worth a nickel!
Irene: You know Grandpa Westfall argued too. He had a temper.
Buster: Oh boy, if he was a quarter inch he'd say "That's mine!"
Irene: Daddy was like that. Boy, Daddy'd play for blood when he
played cards and dominoes. Andy was the same way. They'd just get
so mad if they couldn't win. But you know Grandpa Pounds he wasn't
as well as Grandpa Westfall. He had something wrong with his leg. He
used a cane, and he couldn't get down in the garden and work like
Grandpa Westfall.
I remember he and Grandpa George liked to play dominoes when Grandpa George stayed with us. One of them would get mad and throw the dominoes over the fence. Then the next day they'd both be back out there looking for them. Once though, it rained during the
night, and washed the spots off the dominoes. Mama told me about this. She stood in the kitchen washing dishes and looked out the window, and she saw them out there painting the spots back on.
If he could find a poker game somewhere, that's where you'd find him. Dad said ever since he could remember Grandpa would get in the horse and buggy and take off, go to town and find a poker game. He'd be gone two or three days at a time.
I'll tell you a good story about Granddad Pounds--this is the truth too. We was on that ole farm up there, and there was a dadgummed ole dog come to the house, just an ole cur dog. He looked like a bird dog--he was speckled and had that tail stickin up in the air, and he was starved to death. Granddad got out there and got to feedin him. He got that ole dog up in pretty good shape. Dad went to town with a load of cotton one day, and Granddad said he was gonna take that dog to town and sell him. Dad said, "Why, you can't get nothin out of that dog." Grandpa put that ole dog up in the wagon in that wagon-load of cotton
and went to town, and Dad said he was a-walkin up the street. Granddad had a chain on that dog, collar and chain--boy he looked like a real good one. Ole boy come along and looked at him, said what'd you take for that dog? Granddad said, "Well, I'll take ten dollars." So the ole boy just paid him [laughs]. And that dog wasn't worth a nickel!
Earl Strong: If George lost he'd just go into spasms. He'd really get mad too, accuse you of stealin, cheatin, I don't know what all. Sometimes he'd take the cards and just throw them all over the place. I said "why do you want to do a thing like that?" [laughs] I said, "the only thing I know to do is just not pay any attention to him." He'd have them fits and throw them cards, and I'd go on about doin something else. I'd come back in and he'd have them picked up, maybe cooled off and wantin to play again, you know. He really loved to play them cards.
Melvin used to be a little bit like that. I've seen him just get ahold of a card like that and just [makes a tearing gesture]--you know, have one of them spells. [laughs] I call them "little George spells."
George was a pretty good ole fellow, though. He walked on crutches most of the time, and a lot of time I'd go to work, I'd take him up to town there in Chandler. He'd hang around--he knew everybody, you know--and visit with them around the courthouse. If he wanted to then I'd take him home at noon, or he'd stay till evening till I got off of work, ever what he wanted to do. It was a little too far--it'd been about a block and a half or two blocks maybe to walk back down to the house. He couldn't do that. His legs just wouldn't hold him.
He was a pretty good ole fellow. You'd like to have had time with him.
Grandpa George, 1941
The Darker Side of George
George’s dark side can be stated in a word--selfishness. He put his own wishes ahead of any duty he had to his motherless children. He wanted to spend his free time in the pool hall playing cards, dominoes, and rook. He didn’t play for money because it was illegal and besides he didn’t have any. At heart, however, he was a gambler. That was his vice.
The non-family reader will require some background here. Where did he get his vice? A vice like gambling is inherited, so he got it from his father Thomas (1840-1907) but the problem with Thomas is we have no details about his family life. Though he served in two different units in the Civil War, he clearly was no soldier. He deserted from his first unit and the second was some kind of Missouri “home guards,” a name for collections of local riffraff who pretended taking advantage of the defenseless townspeople (like the “home guard” in Cold Mountain). Somewhere in his first experience of military life, he had lost two fingers, which gave him a perfect excuse not to work. Thomas in turn had inherited his dislike for work from his own father, Benjamin, who was the town drunk of Jewel, county seat of Jewel County, Kansas. One thing makes Benjamin distinct: he had money and so didn’t have to work. The local newspaper periodically reported on Benjamin’s drunken episodes in a humorous fashion. No one cared how much he drank as long as he had money. The mystery is where the money came from. Since he didn’t inherit it, he must have married it. Everything we know about Benjamin vouches for the truth of this assertion, but it would take us too far afield to pursue it. We don’t know what year his wife Sarah began to profit from her family inheritance, but it can probably be roughly dated from the time her sons begin to go bad after she gets to old to control them. After the first two, on whom she may have had more influence, they tend to become typical frontier types, men who would do almost anything to avoid the hard work of farming. Two of the youngest were known as knife fighters, and knife fighters easily became killers.
We’ll stop this genealogical backtracking with the next figure we come to. the centenarian Samuel Pounds, who like the old lady who lived in a shoe had so many children he didn’t know what to do. We can’t account for them all, only group the ones were know about. Samuel was a wanderer, like all his male descendants down to the sons of Grandpa George (who were half hard-working Swedes), the big difference with Samuel being that because he followed the frontier as it moved westward through Pennsylvania until it joined the Ohio River at Pittsburg and followed it west into Ohio and Illinois, there was enough wild game that he never needed to farm. He survived for a hundred and one years as a scout and a hunter, during which time his major accomplishment was as a breeder of children. Most of Samuel’s many descendants know about his bible. What they may not know is that he couldn’t read or write and the bible was published after his death so it could never have belonged to Samuel.
To sum up this short series of thumbnail sketches, to the extent that the men on the American frontier were saved from the worst propensities of their lawlessness, they were saved by their wives. But we were discussing George Pounds. The best thing this crippled man who loved to gamble ever did was to marry a Swedish woman and have eight children by her before her death in 1906. That was George’s one good deed--he married a Swede and in that way changed the character of the male line!
For the sake of people who don’t know the family I will enumerate George’s eight children, starting with the oldest. 1. My granddad Thomas Pounds, born Missouri 1891, died Chandler in1966. He had two sons, two grandsons, no great grandsons. 2. Hank Pounds, born Missouri, 1893, died Chandler 1964. Had one son but no male grandchildren. 3. James Pounds, born Missouri 1894, died Oklahoma 1970. Had one son but no male grandchildren. 4-8. These children numbered 4-8 were either female or adopted into other families. Thus, dear reader, I am like Job’s messenger who reports to his master “I alone am escaped to tell thee.” His message is similar to mine: we have a good number of people surviving from Lincoln County who carry the Pounds bloodline, but I am the last to carry the surname.
Finally, we can imagine asking Grandpa George about his offspring. In 1906, to demonstrate to the world that he didn’t care, he abandoned them all. That remains his only comment. That and the silence.
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