Family Ties

News, 1931

The Caddo Herald

February 20, 1931

J.R. Allen

Saturday evening J. R. Allen, 63 years of age, died at this home near Liberty, after a lingering illness. The funeral was held at Caddo Baptist church Sunday at 2 pm, conducted by Rev. G. A. Gurley. Internment in Caddo Cemetery.

Mr. Allen was a good citizen, a good neighbor, and a consistent, devout member of the Baptist church, and his departure sincerely mourned by all.

Liberty News

Mr. Allen, age 63, died at his home four miles north of Caddo at 8:45 pm Saturday after an illness of about ten weeks. He leaves a wife, twelve children, and several grandchildren, two sisters and two brothers.

He became a Christian early in life and was a member of the Caddo Baptist Church at the time of his death. The funeral was held at the house Sunday afternoon 2:00 pm, Rev. Dick Taylor and G. A. Gurley had charge of the service. The remains were laid to rest in Caddo Cemetery.

Mr. Joe Allen returned to his home in Paris, Texas after attending the funeral of his brother, J. R. Allen.

Prizes

The Atoka County Times

July 14, 1960

Caddo, Route 3

Mrs. John Springer

            Harvest time for our produce; what a good time, for it is then that we see so many of our nice friends we have made over the past years and when we meet a few new ones.

            Our oldest daughter, Mrs. Colleen Simmons, and her four children have been visiting with me the past week. We canned lots of things for her and generally caught up on our visiting from the years past when she lived in California and could not come home.

            Colleen was proudly showing off a new sewing machine she had won by dropping her name in a box at a grocery store where she traded. It was a portable electric and had a price tag of over a hundred dollars on it. Having won several prizes over the past years, I know just how happy it made her. At one time I won a hundred-dollar check from Art Linkletter; also various prizes like a fifty-dollar permit to buy groceries from the store of my choice. I can remember back when years ago I won a Morning Glory mattress. I believe $5.00 and a table-model flashlight was my first winning. I haven’t kept up with the rest, but I have more than paid for my postage over and over again.

F.D.R.

Durant Weekly News

January 15, 1962

Thoughts…

FDR Great President, Time Shows

By Della Springer

            It isn’t usual for me to write on just one subject. Most times my writing is general, but I got to thinking of the leaders of our land, past and present. I think a lot of our president that we have now, but the greatest one in my estimation was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

            Our nation was tottering on the verge of bankruptcy when he took office. As many of you remember, times were awful. Most work to be had paid only from 50 cents to one dollar a day. Jobless pounded the pavement day after weary day, vainly searching for work that was not to be had.

            Long lines at soup kitchens blocked traffic, breaking the huger of many, but also breaking their spirits and doing untold damage to their pride.

            Farm produce sold for a pittance, scarcely enough to pay off the loan that inevitably came due in the fall. –Then we elected a president – but wait. I can best tell it with a poem I wrote years ago. I know it has been published several times, but here it is again – lest you forget:

            Backward turn backward Oh time in your flight,

            Give us a leader that does things just right.

            A leader so gentle, so kind and so true,

            He gave his all gladly for me and for you.

 

            When all seemed lost, jobless thronged the street,

            He brought forth prosperity and plenty to eat.

            He gave his life finally, to bring things to par,

            Let’s never forget him, our own F. D. R.

 

From Don’t Know Much About the Presidents, by Kenneth C. Davis:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Elected president in 1933 by a landslide vote. (Bryan County: Roosevelt- 7,650; Hoover- 825)

Roosevelt died in office in 1945. It was his third term.

 

            “He was elected at the moment of America’s gravest crisis since Lincoln confronted secession, with the nation crippled by an economic disaster so severe that millions had simply lost hope. When the full fury of the Great Depression was unleashed on the country --- closing banks and business, forcing people from their jobs and homes, leaving millions starving --- the idea that the government should actually do something about it was still heresy, especially to the Republican Party and the business class. Government was supposed to stay out of the way and let the markets fix things. To do otherwise was Socialism, Bolshevism. And certainly un-American.

            Franklin D. Roosevelt had other ideas.”

Good News

Durant Daily Democrat

September 11, 1960

Thoughts

People Like to Read Both the Glad and the Gory Stories

By Della Springer

            I just got to thinking the other day about the gruesome headlines in papers nowadays. I wonder if it is the public’s craving for gory, terrible things that causes our editors to dramatize headlines so. For instance, in a paper from one of our larger cities I find, “Man Shoots Neighbor in Back Yard”. Come to think of it, what better place could he have shot him? Another says, “Feud breaks out afresh with the death of two people”, or “Woman found strangled by son-in-law”. (oops, that might give my sons-in-law ideas.)

            The following are headlines that would make me stop, read, and grow alive with interest: “Neighbors rebuild house destroyed by fire” or “Donations taken for family who have suffered great illness”. It is only human nature to let such wonderful things as the working together of friends for the good of others, to go unnoticed, but it would be nice to have all the headlines run on such pleasantries and not a word about sin and evil.

            We are all guilty in spreading bad news. A person who would not walk across the road to convey good news would, on the other hand, walk a mile to tell something of a tragic nature.

 

Did you hear the one about the fellow from way back in the hills who died upon seeing his first car?

He didn’t see it soon enough.