I Believe – My Values

My school years began as a six years of age at Laverne, Oklahoma. From my mother, I learned that I was very shy and the teacher had me sit by her until I felt more secure about being in school. I remember that I really loved my teacher and was very sad when we moved away. My dad decided to stop working with the oil rig job because it was very rough and we had to move so often back and forth from Texas to Oklahoma. We moved to Oklahoma City where he first worked as a sand plant operator, then began working as a manager of gas stations which he did until he retired.  I had to adjust to attending a very large school.  I really did love to go to school and loved learning. We moved again to a place where we could be living more like a farm with a cow and chickens.  We then had to walk on a dirt road to catch a bus to school.  We really loved living there but did not like the mean boys that lived up the hill from us because they were always tormenting us kids.  Dad bought us our very first television which had a small screen and showed black and white pictures.  We almost always had a radio so dad could listen to his favorite music which was country music.   He was much of the time singing or whistling songs and was very good at doing this.  Mom worked outside of the home at times as a cook.  I had my first job also as a babysitter for a family with several small children that lived down the road from us. I think I was about ten years of age at the time. I also remember that one-time mom was upset with my dad when we were living there because he had attempted to make a still for making his own beer. Dad, I’m glad that you didn’t get caught!  Love you, DAD!!!

We then moved to a house that was by a railroad track and had to get used to the sound of a train which I eventually really learned to enjoy that sound. I was now at about the age of eleven and began attending a Baptist Church and made the life-changing decision to be baptized.  This decision to follow my Saviour, Jesus Christ, started me on a journey to find more truths and to search for what purpose I was placed here upon this earth.   When I was twelve years old, we moved to a  farmhouse between the towns of Yukon and Mustang which was the cause of another turning point in not only my life but also in my family’s lives.  For the first time since we left the farm when I was five years old, mom did not have to work outside the home. We all really enjoyed having mom at home full time and experiencing farm life again.  We again had to walk the dusty road to catch the school bus to the small school in Mustang, Oklahoma. Being a student at this small school was a life-changing experience for me and each of my siblings.  Each of us excelled in our educational studies. Also, we were blessed to attend the little country church called West Point due to the fellowshipping by two wonderful people, Bob and Ola Fry. These dedicated Christians would come to take us to church, “come rain or shine” on that dusty or muddy road. I was then baptized again into the Christian Church. What a loving and giving group of people they were!  I studied the scriptures daily and my search for more truths and why I was here upon this earth continued. I attended Mustang School for two years and graduated from the eighth grade as valedictorian.  My dad was so proud of me that he asked what I would like for a gift. I told him that I had always wanted a piano, not believing that was even possible due to the fact that pianos were probably much too costly for our family’s financial income.  Much to my surprise, after graduation, I came home to find this old antique piano situated in our living room that my dad was able to purchase for sum total of fifty collars. I cried with joy and gave my dad a great big hug!

This is only one of many times that our parents sacrificed to give us our needs and wants in our lives.  They also taught us the value of hard work and to do our best in whatever we wanted to achieve. Another great blessing came to me and my sister Sheila through knowing Ola Fry. She offered to give us free piano lessons if we would clean the little country church weekly. I had already learned musical notes as I was involved in the band at school as a clarinet player and once again my parents had sacrificed to buy me a clarinet.  I loved playing the clarinet and was the first chair in the clarinet section.  I also was on the basketball team but was unable to be a part of their games because I did not have a way to get to the games.  I loved living in this place with mom at home, being involved with the wonderful people at the Mustang school and the good Christian people at the little country church, and am eternally grateful to all those who helped me to become a better me. We then were told we had to move again because the place we were living at had been sold and dad found a place north of Yukon.  This meant we had to change schools and attend Yukon School.  I was very sad and did not want to change schools but this is what I did reluctantly.  I was now in high school and a stranger to most of the students who had known each other all of their lives but learned to love going to school at Yukon and became active in their Student Council and their choir.  Also, mom and dad leased a small cafe and called it Lees’ Grill.  That initiated another big change in our lives. While dad and my one brother, Richard were busy ten to twelve hours a day managing a gas station, mom and the girls were busy at Lees’ Grill which was open 24/7 and closed only on Sunday.  We girls learned to prepare and serve food and wash the never-ending dishes.  This was another learning experience, especially in confronting and dealing with all kinds of people. I think that we truly were there more than at home but were involved in helping to sustain our family’s lives and working together for the good of each other. What valuable life lessons we learned.  I also will relate one very funny but embarrassing experience to me.  In the process of getting an order, I asked the person if he wanted smashed potatoes and he chuckled saying, “How do you smash them?”  I then realized that they are not smashed but mashed potatoes.  I never made that mistake again.  Remembering school days again, I had a fabulous homemaking teacher who taught us how to make yummy biscuits and helped me to even sew myself a prom dress that even was wearable and looked very nice on me which I was able to wear for many occasions for many years.  This was quite an accomplishment for me since sewing is a very trying skill for me and still is.  If you want me to swear like a sailor, sit me down in front of a sewing machine.  I’m so very grateful that my homemaking teacher had the patience of Job. Thanks so much to you, Mrs. Ramsey!    Another teacher that really influenced my life was my English teacher, Ms. Ratcliff.  She inspired me to use my creative skills in writing about all the many thoughts and emotions that I experienced on a daily basis in my life with my family, other people, nature, and all the world around me.  I continued to study the scriptures and attend the little country church and search for my purpose in life.  I received a small scholarship to attend Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. My dream was to become a missionary nurse.

I just remember another event that happened in my junior year that not only affected me deeply but all of America.  The following are some of the thoughts and emotions that I wrote in my journal about this event. “On Friday, November 22,  1963, at one o’clock, our president was dead, assassinated by Lee Oswald, a man whose scorpion mind had to let some of its deadly poison escape. President Kennedy, America’s symbol of freedom and courage, happened to be its victim, but our generation is not the first to experience such a tragedy or will be the last.  The church, or symbol of strength and comfort in times of crisis, was sought by everyone.  We must remember that “Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

My senior year passed much too quickly and I was now a graduate.  I had met a very handsome young man with dark hair and eyes. He was of the Nazarene faith and we dated during that summer. I was excited about going to college in the fall.  I was very surprised when this young man asked me to marry him.  He was my first boyfriend and this was my first proposal. I had no idea that he felt that way about me,and felt very sad to tell him that I really liked him but was not ready for marriage and already had plans to become a missionary nurse.

My name is Alveta Ann Lee, and this is my life story. I was born September 21, 946 in Vici Oklahoma. My dad’s name is Fred Elmer Lee and my mom’s name is Imo Eileen Daniels. Just a little history of how my mom and dad met and their love story. My dad was a soldier in World War II fighting the Nazis in Europe and was stationed in Italy until the war ended in 1945. He returned to his home on the farm in Vici Oklahoma. He first saw my mom Imo Eileen Daniels when she was working as a waitress in a cafe in Arnett Oklahoma, which was a neighboring town. The first time he saw her, he thought to himself that is the girl I am going to marry. He asked her out on a date to a dance and I guess you could say he swept her off her feet as he was a very handsome guy with a winning smile and a good dancer. He was 26 years old and mom was only 17 years of age and still a Senior in Highschool. My mom’s dad, Admiral Dewey Daniels, said that they could get married, but she had to finish high school and graduate. They were married on August 13, 1945, at a city hall???. My mom was also a star basketball player, but when they got married that all changed because Elmer did not want her out playing in front of everyone in shorts. She became pregnant soon after and I was born on September 21, 1946, in Vici Oklahoma.
I was born at the home of Doctor Vince. I weighed 5 pounds 6 ounces and was 21 inches long. According to my mom, I was a blue baby and not breathing and she was hemorrhaging and my dad fainted. My dad described me as looking like a skinned jackrabbit because I was so long and skinny and said I did not look like a Lee. I had blonde hair and blue eyes while my parents were dark-haired and dark eyes. I seemed to take after the Nixon side, who were of Irish and English descent. I was the only one out of my siblings that had this coloring.
My dad became my hero and saved my life many times. The first story that my mom told me was when I was a baby my dad saved my mom and my life. My dad came home from work my mom was passed out and he realized there was carbon monoxide in the house. He immediately got us out of the house. He saved my life another time when I was young I had contracted pneumonia and he took me to the doctor. Shelia came along very soon after me when my sister Shelia came early weighing only 3 pounds 2 ounces. My mom said she brought her home and she slept in a little shoebox. Shelia was tiny with red hair and freckles. Such a cute baby. We were very close as sisters when we were growing up and still are. My other siblings were Marvin Elis Lee born May 22, 1948, in Pampa, Texas, who died shortly after birth, and Evalyn Louise Lee September 15, 1949, who also died shortly after birth. Richard Elis Lee was born June 1 1952 in Woodward Oklahoma. Luetta Kaylee was born November 15, 1954, in Oklahoma City and was also premature.
My first memory was living in a little two-room Sod house west of Vici which was the Lee homestead. I remember a big windmill in our front yard with roaming cows and top it all off a dog. A picturesque of what people lived in in the plains of Oklahoma. We then moved to the east of Vici in a newer house with running water and electricity. I had happy memories of living there with my mom and dad and sister, except for one memory of a mean goose who finally was a cooked goose. I loved helping my mom feed the chickens from a young age, I loved all animals. One spring our female sow had baby pigs and I wanted to hold them so bad the mother sow came after me and my dad jumped into the corral and saved my life again. You could say my dad was my hero so many times in my life. My mom was very loving and never raised her voice with us. My sister and I were taught at a very young age to help my mother and never be disrespectful to her. We were taught the importance of work and doing the best of any job we were doing. I remember being very shy because we were farm girls and never really went anywhere. Shelia and I liked to make mud pies, we had paper dolls, played with the animals, played hopscotch, rope jumping, and jacks. Life was simple, we never had a TV until I was about ten years old. We had a radio which played Dad’s favorite country music. My dad liked to whistle and sing country songs, he also loved to dance. My dad’s parents went to dances until they were unable to.
Living on the plains of Oklahoma we were subject to tornados every spring. My dad would stay up during the night watching the storm clouds because at that time we had no tornado sirens that warn of danger. There were many nights that my sister Shelia and I would grab our dolls and dad would hurry us to the cellar to stay until morning. I did not like the cellars they were dark and had spiderwebs! Later in my life when we lived North of Yukon when I was 12 years of age I heard the sound of a locomotive train, so figured I had been dreaming, and little did I know that a tornado had hit right by our house leaving the house, but taking the barn. Thank goodness for angels watching over us.
I loved both of my grandparents but I felt closer to my mom’s parents, Admiral Dewey and Edna Cornelia Barton Daniels. I remember staying with my mom’s parents when we were young girls and Grandma Daniels would make homemade buttermilk biscuits and homemade syrup which we loved. Grandpa Daniels loved to tease us and make a rise out of us. Also, I remember my Aunt Delia made some chocolate fudge and we were not supposed to eat the fudge before it was done, but Shelia and I got into the fridge and ate it with spoons and it was gone by the time she got home. I appreciate all my ancestry from England, and Ireland but cherish the fact that Grandma Daniels was of Cherokee descent. I loved my Aunt Pearl who was my grandma Lee’s sister, on my dad’s side. She had a piano which I loved to play and she was a very happy, jolly person who made you feel at home. The Nixon’s came from Nebraska. Grandpa Daniels was from Illinois.

I’ve been asked what we did on the Fourth of July.  The main thing I can remember as a youngster is that on the Fourth of July, we would put the stock racks on Dad’s one-ton truck, throw on four or five bales of hay, and head to Cassoday for Countryman’s rodeo, a three-decade Independence Day tradition that began in 1939.  A neighbor  family, the Bings had two kids about our age and often came along with us.  Dad would drive; Mom and Velma Bing would ride in the cab; Raymond Bings, a cowboy and farmer, rode in the back with us kids as we rode the 25-30 miles up through the Flint Hills.   The Countryman family, cattle people, had put up a six-foot tall fence of hog wire to create an arena in one of their pastures.   Dad would back our truck up to the fence and we’d cover the stock racks with a tarp to give us some shade for watching the rodeo.  While we waited for the festivities to start, we four kids would walk an eighth of a mile from the arena to a little creek that ran through the pasture to throw the few firecrackers we had into the water to pass the time.  The families had brought a picnic lunch of fried chicken, potato salad and the like, which we ate in the back of the truck.  They had also 

brought a tub of ice water and sodas, which he hardly ever got except for this special occasion. 

Many of the competitors were cowboys from Butler, Chase, and Greenwood Counties as well as adjoining counties.  There were usually cowboys from elsewhere and even professional cowboys.  Normally we knew probably half of the contestants.  That was an outdoor outing we looked forward to every year.

One of the shops in Latham when I was growing up was the shoe repair shop.  I always liked going in to visit with Frank Ferguson, the gentleman that ran it.  The smells of leather and glue were nearly overpowering.  It was interesting to watch him work.  The shop had one power source to create electricity, then a big belt took power off the shaft to run equipment, like his grinder.  Mr. Ferguson had two wooden legs, which he moved by turning his hips.  His legs had both been amputated after a hospital injury where x-rays were accidentally left on his legs for too long a time.  He was, however, able to make a living and support his family, and I really enjoyed watching him work.  Back then, instead of buying a new pair, people tried to have their shoes repaired.  If possible they would replace the heels, sometimes by themselves with a rubber replacement heel if they had the tools, or have Mr. Ferguson refurbish them, to extend the life of their shoes.

Our friends from England, John and Margaret Edge, whom we met and worked with on the Thailand project, came to visit after we were all retired.  Pat and I had been going for the winter to Destin, Florida, and several times the Edges joined us there to visit the usual tourist spots together.  We also enjoyed time in the Orlando area.  They wanted to visit Yellowstone so I made arrangements for all of us to go there in June.  Pat and I had enjoyed visiting the park several times.

We drove up through South Dakota and Wyoming, and stayed a week in Cody, Wyoming, at the historic Irma Hotel, named for Buffalo Bill Cody’s daughter.  We enjoyed the sights there including the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, which is five separate museums featuring the history of the people from the native Americans to the cowboy days; western artists including Frederic Remington; natural history of the Yellowstone area; and the most comprehensive firearms museum in the entire country.  

The day we started out to drive to the east gate of Yellowstone, a rancher happened to come in the hotel door and asked if we were headed there.  He had just come from that direction, and warned us that a pretty bad snowstorm there had probably closed the east gate.  He called a friend that worked at the tourist office, who confirmed that we would need to reroute up through Montana and come through the north gate.  

John and Margaret enjoyed driving through the park and John took lots of pictures.  We stayed in a Yellowstone Lodge.  Many of the wait staff at the restaurant in the lodge were from  countries all over Europe, and enjoyed visiting with us and giving their opinions about Yellowstone.  

When visiting Jackson Hole, we attended a play where we met four people from France, who spoke a little English.  Luckily, John and Margaret had spent a lot of time in France and spoke quite a bit of French, so we had a good conversation with them.  We drove back to Missouri and ended the trip with a stay in Branson.

The Edges became good friends.  John was very interested in Americans because when he was a little boy in England, he got acquainted with our troops that were gathering there for the Normandy Invasion.  He just thought they were neat and had never heard of people with nicknames like Mike and Ike.  He was a little boy, right in the middle of what was going on.  They were different and became heroes to him.  He got up one morning and went to check on them—and they were all gone!  During the night they had moved out and didn’t even say goodbye.  He had very hurt feelings because he liked them all so much. He didn’t know they were leaving for the invasion of Normandy.  Years later he found a cemetery where many of them were buried.  John told us he had stolen some of their k-rations and always felt guilty about it.  They had gum and cigarettes and all kinds of stuff he’d never tried before.  I told him that I imagined the soldiers knew all about that, and he shouldn’t worry about it. 

Many memories have been made at our lake house.  When we first moved here, we noticed that many of the other nearby houses were built back up away from the water.  Our house, on the other hand, was close enough that with a couple of beers, you could easily stumble into the water.  On an early stay here, Tori was into roller skating.  She decided to try skating down the driveway, which is pretty steep.  She got going so fast that she could not navigate the horseshoe turn and ended up grabbing the trunk of a tree to stop herself.  

I had to think long and hard about telling this next story.  (It might need the disclaimer, “Kids, don’t try this at home!”)  

The railroad that ran through Latham started at Winfield and terminated at Beaumont, with a train that went through once a day, stopping at probably half a dozen little cities on the way to deliver and pick up freight.  The train workers would stay at the little hotel in Beaumont and return to Winfield the next day.  We all knew the schedule of that one train going through each day. 

I had a ‘41 Ford car; the distance between wheels on the car was exactly the width of the railroad tracks and the tires fit the rails well enough that they were pretty stable.  Emboldened by the story of someone else having done it, some friends and I loaded up in my car and got onto the rails where they crossed the road.  We started toward Beaumont, cruising at 35 mph through pastures and across road crossings, though going over bridges was nerve racking.  We had to be careful not to touch the steering wheel as it could make the car jump off the track!  At Beaumont, we got off the rails, went into the hotel restaurant, and got a coke.  When we got back into the car, I said I wasn’t riding the rails again, so we took the road home.  Eventually this little railroad spur shut down.

About 25 miles from our lake house where we live today is a cave restaurant, where we have often taken our guests.  To get into the restaurant, we had to take an elevator up about two stories from an area near the bank of the river that runs nearby.  The parking lot is about a quarter mile from the restaurant; we would call on their intercom and a guy would come pick us up in a golf cart.  

The owner had cleaned out a lot of dirt and rock to build the restaurant, which would hold probably 75 people.  The ceiling of the cave was approximately 40 feet above the roof of the restaurant.  The draft of cool air from the cave through an open door provided natural air conditioning.  

As the local legend goes, years earlier, people accessed the cave via a ladder from above, holding dances and consuming illegal moonshine.  Whenever they suspected revenuers or other authorities were snooping around, they would just take down the ladder until the killjoys were gone.  

Butler County, the largest county in Kansas, once had a lot of oil production.   In 1918, the El Dorado oil fields yielded nearly nine percent of all the oil produced in the United States.  The county boasted four refineries; Eldorado had Skelly and El Rico, Potwin had Vickers Oil Company, and Augusta’s was Mobil.  

Around El Dorado, one of the major producers was Cities Service, for whom Pat’s father worked.  Cities Service had their own little town called Oil Hill.  The company built everything they thought their employees would need, including a grade school, a community swimming pool, ball fields, stores, and restaurants.  Most students attended high school in El Dorado, but some went to Towanda.  Pat has good memories of attending school there.  

The Butler County area had several ball teams one being from Skelly Oil where half of the team was made up from employees.  Some would hire professional baseball players to come in and play for a season or maybe just for one important game.  One such professional baseball player was Casey Stengel, manager of the New York Yankees.  Several of Skelly’s players also worked at the refinery.