Transcribed For Online by Geraldine [email protected]
Records Contributed by Vicki Bell-Reynolds [email protected]

When the people in that country wasn't working in their fields then they would be out on the river on a fish fry. I have seen as many as 6 to 8 families at one time at a fish fry. I remember one time there was several families on a fish fry and I happened to be in the road, there was a boy of one family about 17 years old and weighed about 210 lbs and nearly the all the families had about 3 or 4 in a family, this boy was swinging out over the water by a grape vine he would take hold of the vine and swing out. When he swung out over the water this limb broke and he fell into water that was in the river, some one said that he had fallen into the river his mother jumped up and started to run for dear life and when she arrived at the bank of the river she just leaped and went into the water and got boy out of the water and they were both was just as wet as could be. Certainly a big time for everybody there had a good time, there was some of the boys in the water catching the fish and throwing them out on the bank and some was carring them to the cooking place and some were cleaning them and some was cooking them, we had all the fish that we could eat and was a lot left over that we couldn't eat then.

In the year of 1908 there was a flood on the red river and washita river both and everything in and around Woodville was under water, the water was up over the Frisco Railroad bridge and the trains couldn't cross the river going from Woodville to Texas, great crowds of people would go down to the rivers and watch the water flow down stream. You could almost see anything going down stream, there was a house over on Texas side of the red river and the water was up the roof of the house and a man and woman was sitting stradle of the comb of the roof and hollowing for help, on the Okla. side of the river was a large crowd of people looking out across the water and one of the crowd heard these people calling for help. There was a man that had a new wagon bed for his wagon. They took the bed of the wagon stuffed rags in the end of the four corners of the wagon bed and they made them some paddles from some planks from a man house that lived close to the river, there was a man there and his boy they got into this wagon bed with paddles and a bucket and went over to this house, they parked the wagon bed at the roof of the house. they brought the woman down the roof first and then the man come down and when he stepped from the roof of the house on to the wagon bed the house just lifted up and turned over and went on down stream. The weight of these two held the house down on its side. After they got the couple into the wagon bed and started back they missed their starting place about one quarter of mile the water was so high and rough, the water was several days going down to normal but, some of the people fished out thing that was floating down stream. Just south of Woodville the water was about 20 feet deep and about 3 miles across it.

There was one man there that wanted to get up bet that he could swim across the river but, nobody would bet with him because they knew that couldn't swim it. There was a saw mill down on the washita river and it was completely under water. All you could see was the smoke stack to the engine room all rest of the mill was under water. The Frisco Ry would bring grain in from Madill of which would be north of us and turn them around and then run them back to Madill and reroute the passengers and freight over to railroads.

When we lived in Woodville, my Uncle Thornt Young loaned us a milch cow to milk for her feed.

And in her lot there was a lot of seed dropped for feed for the birds to come and pick up. I was a very small boy I would make a bird trap to catch these birds in. I would stand this trap on its edge and put a stick up and ways so the trap would be high at one edge and the stick would hold up the bird trap. I would tie a string to the stick and would bring the string to the house run it through a window and stand there and watch for birds to come to my bird trap. I would have feed under the trap and when they come and go under the trap for feed I would pull the string and the trap would fall catching the birds in the trap.

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