Today's Tales of Yesteryear

 

Today’s Tales of Yesterday

Address given by Dr. Frank Balyeat

Chandler News Publicist, August 8, 1957

NOTE: At the annual picnic of  the Chandler Historical Society, quest speaker of the evening was Frank Balyeat, professor emeritus of the University of Oklahoma, who also is field representative of the department of archives of the University library, to gather information and material on the background of education in Oklahoma. Dr. Balyeat's speech by tape recording taken the next day is as follows:

GOOD EVENING ladies and gentlemen. I am Frank Balyeat now of Norman but formerly of Lincoln county and very grateful and happy to be present at your 1957 annual picnic dinner, and meet some of the people who nave known Lincoln county longer and better than I have.

"My parents and their children moved to Lincoln county in March 1892 from Logan county where we had lived 18 months after leaving Kansas with a lot of other people who were dead broke financially. My father bought the relinquishment of the E¼ of Sec. 23, Twp. 15 N., Range 2 East. That means four miles northwest of Wellston, and there we lived for

17 years when we moved to Norman. "I remember vividly, as you can well understand those early days even of my early childhood and impressions of them, such as Bessie Herring's master thesis written at the University of Oklahoma on Lincoln county through 1942; or

Rev. H. D. Ragland's articles in the Chronicles of Oklahoma some 'firsts' in Lincoln county,

particularly, Alberta Wilson Constant's novel, Oklahoma Run. 

Yes, it's a novel--I've read it through twice, carefully, and I've read other parts of it and know that it depicts faithfully and in a picturesque way the very early days Lincoln county. Her mother, Mrs. W. C. Erwin now of Chandler, must be very proud of a production of that sort. "Just a little bit about my family and me and then I want to tell you something much more important than we are. My parents preceded us, my mother 1922, my father in 1927, both buried in the Wellston cemetery, but their seven children are all living; two of my brothers in California; a sister in Oregon, and I have two sisters and a brother in Oklahoma. Occasionally we get together and of course we are always talking about the old times on our farm between Fallis and Wellston. I am interested in Lincoln county because ten of the twelve years to go to high school were spent in the rural schools of Lincoln county and some of the time under Walter C. Erwin's teaching, both in the country and in Wellston. He was our rural teacher in 1894 and boarded with us and then I attended school parts of two years in Wellston-seat mate of his brother, P. D. Erwin. "I taught one year—my first year-in 1904 in a rural school, Eagle Creek it was called, near Warwick; was superintendent of the Wellston schools in 1908 and '09 the last year we lived in the County. 

Since then I've taught here and there over the State a good deal--my last ten years in the Hobart schools concluding there as superintendent, Did work with the American Army here and in France during the first World War in school work: during the second World war, with the federal government's program, but most of the time, all or a part of every calendar year since 1890, I've been enrolled or employed with the public schools, so naturally I'm interested in them. 

Last year, having reached the age of 70, was retired from teaching at the University of Oklahoma where I had been for 29 years, and now I have the blessed privilege studying, recording and collecting facts about the schools of Oklahoma Territory and State, and Indian Territory. May I remind you that we have the most interesting and fascinating history, including history of schools of any State in the Union. None filled us so fast or developed so fast and in such interesting ways as did Oklahoma. 

Now, I want to spend the rest of my days--and hope that you will share in your way in helping such cause--in gathering facts and putting them where they won't get lost or destroyed; where they can be found by the people of today who are interested in posterity about our State. "Soon they are putting in the field for the first time a full-time field representative who will be covering the State to find things that you have in your trunk attic or office or somewhere that are worth more to historical record and the researcher of tomorrow than they are to you--your letters that you're willing to share, your clippings, your scrap book, your pictures the old grade cards

and diplomas and certificates and deeds, and things of that sort, are extremely interesting.

Some of you have written --and more of you ought to write--memoirs, or just an account of some event-your coming to Oklahoma; your making the run; your surviving the drought and the depression that came the same year or any phases of that. Get them on paper, get them in shape that we can put them where they will be found. We at the University of Oklahoma have in the Library the Department of Archives where we're collecting and putting in fireproof rooms in box files where they can be found, recognizing the donors with who they are and a little bit about them, card-filing them so the searcher can find them, anything

that pertains--anything--to the background of Oklahoma and its wonderful development.

Personally, I'm interested in schools, and beginning this fall, I'm choosing Lincoln county where I taught my first school where I attended most of my elementary days, as one of four which is being developed as fully as the facts can be found, written up and recorded and put away where the people of the future can use any important facts, and with the help of your county superintendent and former county superintendents, like Tom Denyer and others, and the records in the State Department. By this time next year, I hope to have and plan to have a file rather well filled and well organized and just as well told as we can possibly

do. 

Not published, but kept there--the record of the development and passing of a good many of the schools of Lincoln county--a copy of the summary to be given Charlie Wright, the president of your local historical society, whom I must take this opportunity to commend and encourage for the wonderful leadership that he is exercising here and the fine people who are supporting him. He will get a copy of this and your county superintendent will get a copy. I want Dave Phillips to have a copy of the history of the Chandler high school our oldest and

largest--and this sort of record it is my ambition, and the Lord willing, to carry on to other counties, and in course of time we are going to have in the University of Oklahoma Archives something and the more the better, and the more it is will depend on your help--of our schools. 

And I ask that you business and industrial men and officials expand that to include the development of industry and the government, and commercial clubs, and ladies clubs, and anything of that sort that is a part of the background of the history of the wonderful people of Lincoln county of whom I am most proud still to be a part, and I crave the opportunity still saying We when I am with you and talking with you because I am still Lincoln county.

Just a little more about those primitive schools that you and I remember, that the children of today can't even imagine. It was my fifth year in school before I sat at a manufactured bench. We sat on boards laid across boxes. writing on our knees, putting the

books back of our feet on the floor, using our double slates to write inside the composition

and to draw the map. and may I tell you that I am so eager to get a double slate like the one that I used, and if you know of someone who has one, I'm the boy that wants it.

You remember those early days when we packed our buckets with, oh, whatever we had and what our mothers could prepare for us, for our lunch: how we tramped up to the front to the recitation bench for our ten minute recitation-or the 15 if we were in the A class-right under the map box that had the maps and the switches on top of it! You remember those days? You remember the early churches too, don't you-in the school house or in the brush arbor? Oh, pretty close to a swimming hole where the baptizing could go on. And I wish that you'd get the history of those early churches of Lincoln county. 

Who were those pastors that rode their horses once a month or twice a month to one of the places where they preached? Who were some of the pioneers that led the singing, and buried the dead and took care of the people who were sick? You remember how we used to sit up with each other, not having nurses or hospitals--sit up with each other until we were dead, and, after we were dead, till we were buried? Let's get those on record, and what you have that you'll write or print or already have, please, please, let the Chandler Historical Society have it for their files, and in doing so you'll help more than you know. I'm especially thrilled to see the beginning of what's going to be one of the best early local historical museums in Oklahoma. You are fortunate in inheriting the old East Side school and getting it equipped with the materials that we used yesterday, and the pictures of what we looked like and what we wore yesterday.

I have just been thrilled this evening in going through the rooms and seeing the beginning, and please help Mr. Wright and those working with him in gathering and framing and arranging material. It's going to take work--not one person, but several persons; not one hour, but several. But please give them, and let this be the depository of what is precious

as the memory of the yesterdays of a country that is unique in the history of the world.

(The Chandler Historical Society adds its endorsement to the above. Please let us hear from

you.)

A word from your present editor: for names of people mentioned in Dr. Balyeat’s plea above, look in the Chandler’s grave  yards.