The "Old Home Place" abt 1900-1910

The "Old Home Place" abt 1900-1910
Earp Homestead located N. Keokuk Twp., SE 1/4 S6 T15N R6E, Lincoln CO., OK, or 3 miles north and 2 1/2 miles west of Stroud, OK.

The Earp Family Blog


THE EARP FAMILY BLOG


Here you'll find a family parlor for descendants and other kin of William Asbury and Mary Frances (Wright) Earp, who settled near Stroud (Lincoln Co.) Oklahoma Territory in 1892. May it be a resting place along the highway of time for all who pass this way. Come on in--the door's open. Sit down and rest a spell. Let's swap some stories and photographs from the treasure chest of time. Y'all come on in now, hear?





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Thursday, April 24, 2014

ARLY

It was north of Chandler 1939,
My granddad with the blue killer eyes
Hughie Earp reading by kerosene lamp light
A shoot'em-up dime-store western,
Much to the surprise of the brown-
Eyed farm lad come courting,
Later to be my father
And recall to me that scene
Glimpsed through an opening door,
And even then he not fooled by such
Display of weakness for the word
In this known hardshod
Horse trader who still had
The first nickel he'd ever made,
This pale-eyed reader
Rocklike in washed out overalls
Whose livestock had a new windmill
While Arly carried water
Up the hill and longed for town.

In the photo I have of them, made
From a discarded negative after Grandpa died,
Hughie looks straight into the lens,
Arly wears a black church-going hat,
Her gaze gone out grimly away from his.
Arly daily carried the water
For the kitchen and table and bath
Up a hundred-yard slope
Of red-clay rocky Lincoln County hill
Silently by hand.

I remember a Sunday once
With whoops and chants
She gathered up her skirts
And showed us how the Sac and Fox danced.



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Taken from "Oklahoma Elegies, Chronicles and Family History"
by Wayne Pounds

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