The Motley Seed Store was owned and operated by Garland Motley. Back in the forties and fifties alfalfa seed was sown primarily to enrich the soil where it was grown. Because a lot of alfalfa was being grown in Harmon County, there was a demand for ways to clean the seed of trash and other seeds. Garland installed seed cleaning machines to do just that. His first plant in Hollis was on the west end of town in what was called "the round barn". When the plant was moved to the corner of South Main and Broadway, the "round barn" was used for dumping the plumage----trash, hulls, weed seed, etc that had been cleaned from the alfalfa seed. The new location had previously housed Petty's Furniture Store. Garland remodeled the building to fit his needs. He installed two big tanks to blend several lots of seed to make one large lot and seed cleaning equipment. This information was provided by Bill Bilbrey, an employee of Motley Seed Store for several years.
June Cope added, "When Grady returned from serving in the United States Air Force in 1945, he went to work for Garland. Garland sent Grady to Ames, Iowa to study to become a seed analyst. Grady immediately went to work and paid Garland for the classes in seed analyzing. Grady analyzed seed for Garland for 15-16 years. After commercial fertilizer became available, the demand for alfalfa seed dwindled. There was no longer a lot of seed to be analyzed, and Grady left the company to become Hollis Postmaster. He continued to analyze seed evenings and weekends."
Each customer that brought in seed had a separate lot number. After cleaning and checking for purity (the seed was required to be between 96 to 99 % pure), the seed was blended and taken out of the side of the tanks, bagged in 150 pound bags, and loaded on trucks to take to the M K and T railroad. The railroad cars were rough inside so the men had to cooper the cars. This meant lining the inside of the cars with heavy paper to protect the bags from tearing. Kenneth Bartlett said that this was one of his jobs.
The alfalfa seed was shipped all over the country where it was planted and then the plants were plowed under to enrich the soil. Some days two or more loads (about 30,000 pounds per load) would be shipped.
Alfalfa season was from July to August. During this busy time there were usually nine to ten workers who started to work at 7:00 a.m., worked to 7:00 p.m. and came back after dinner to work until 10:00.
A few times when the seed market was at a low price, Garland would call his friends, Victor Wickersham and Robert S. Kerr, for a conference. This got the price of seed back up and was a great help to the local farmers.
Garland owned other seed cleaning plants in Plainview, Texas, Twin Falls, Idaho and Tipton, Oklahoma.
Kenneth Bartlett related that he and Arthur Barnett were sent to Kansas one winter to pick up 30 thousand pounds of alfalfa seed. They loaded the seed and were on their way back to Hollis when they got caught in a snow storm. They got stuck in the snow, walked back to Liberal where they stayed a week, leaving the load of seed on the country road. Garland called several times to "check on his seed".
Kenneth also said, "Working at the seed store was hard work, but we had lots of fun."
One example of the "fun" Kenneth tells about is the time several of the men were sitting around and someone bet that Kenneth couldn't carry a 150 pound bag of seed around the block on his back. Garland said that he would give him the bag of seed if he could. The bag was loaded on his back and Kenneth started at the back of the store, out the front door around the block and back to the back of the store. Garland gave him the seed worth $90 dollars. Another example of "fun" was putting alfalfa seed in Tom Jones' snuff box when he wasn't looking.
Garland owned and used a plane to get him around the country as he made seed and cattle deals. One day he instructed Kenneth and his pilot, Bill Johnson, to get the plane ready and fly it to Plainview. He would drive so that he would have use of the car while he was there. When Kenneth and Bill arrived by air, Garland was waiting for them. He was never one to poke around.
On one occasion a man brought in a load that was full of careless weed seed. After cleaning it, they bagged the weed seed and sat it aside. A call came from a man in California wanting careless weed seed. He bought the sacks of weed seed for 15 cents a pound.
Betty, Garland's daughter-in-law, remembers farmers spreading their seed to dry on the streets of Hollis. Her dad spread his crop of alfalfa seeds on tarps in their yard, and she and her sisters were responsible for keeping it stirred. When it was dry, they shoveled it into bags, and their Dad loaded it in his truck to take to the seed store, often letting his girls go along for the ride.
As the seed business slowed down, Garland went into the cattle business. The seed office then became office for the ranching operation and the seed business. Esmer Crow was a faithful secretary for both businesses for many years.
A "story" is told that one morning Tom Prock, the local night watchmen, saw a spark of light in the direction of the seed store. Then another. As he approached the sparks, he saw Esmer striking matches to find her way to work. She not only arrived early and stayed late, she got to work by walking. I doubt the story is true, but one that shows everyone who knew her knew how devoted she was to Garland and her job.
When Tom, Garland's son, graduated from OU, he returned to Hollis to go into business with his dad. The first summer Tom and Betty lived in Tipton, and Tom ran the plant there. The next fall they moved to Hollis, and Tom continues in the ranching business today.
Betty remembers that long before she and Tom were married, her Dad remarked one day that Garland Motley was the most honest man he had ever done business with. Kenneth Bartlett agreed and says that if anyone was ever dissatisfied, Garland would make it right. Mickie Young Hicks also agreed and added that Garland was not only honest, he was a fine man.
Mickie was happy to be asked about her experience at the seed store and related:
"Garland must have known that to give me a job would mean the difference between my having nice school clothes and having made-overs. The money I earned that summer seemed like a fortune to me. When Bill and I married and came to New Mexico, the tweed coat I bought was my winter coat. Somewhere I have a 35-mm slide of me and Dolly Jarvis standing in front of a museum in Santa Fe; I'm standing proudly in my coat.
And Grady Cope was another fine man. He taught me to obtain seeds from sacks of alfalfa and, using tweezers, to put the seeds on damp blotters. Then the blotters were placed in an "oven." The heat was an electric light bulb. After x number of days, I would count for germination. At some point I also identified the weed seeds and entered this information on a card. This determined how much Garland paid the farmer for his crop. Grady was such a quiet gentle man. I adored him the rest of his life. Esmer was a jewel. Garland depended heavily on her. My new clothes were wonderful, but the experience of working around people like those lasted me a lifetime.
To this day, I remember how proud I was to go to J. C. Penney's and buy "ready-made clothes." I remember every detail of my "store-boughten" dress. It was navy blue piped with white and had large white buttons on a double breasted front. Navy is still my favorite and color. As I sit here writing this, I feel sorry for youngsters who didn't have to work as teenagers. They never knew the pride of shopping with "earned" money. Or the joy of getting up in the morning and going to work with "grown up people."
In Hollis, Oklahoma, there was no shortage of youngsters in the same predicament as myself. And no shortage of businesses and businessmen willing to take on the job of training the raw talent to meet the outside world. It is a "crying shame" (one of Joe Bailey's expressions) that the old men of today won't recount their lives in the thirties and forties. That kind of "growing up" is gone forever. If we don't write it down for history, no one will ever know what our younger days were like. Every old man and old woman who was raised under our circumstances, has an interesting story.
It's a crying shame it is close to extinction."
In May of 1967 Garland was at the Hollis Inn eating breakfast before going to the office and had a stroke. He passed away the next day. He spent his entire life living and working here in Hollis. He was a wonderful father, grandfather and father-in-law. He loved his grandchildren, Gary, Stan and Melissa, dearly. Mrs. Motley would come over almost daily and take Stan and Melissa to the seed store to see their Grandpappy.
Some of the employees of the seed and ranching business were:
Arthur Barnett
Kenneth Bartlett
Rommie Bartlett
Fred Batten
Sam Batten
Bill Bilbrey
Grover Bilbrey
Lowell Bilbrey
Doug Burns
Hendricks Bynum
Earl "Shorty" Bynum
Claude Chenault
Gubber Clark
Grady Cope
Esmer Crow
Jack Hart
James Orville Heflin
Clifford Jennings
Bill Johnson
Tom Jones
Willie McCain
Shorty McDowell
Paul Merida
Bundy Moore
Colonel Page
Raymond Powers
Duward Parker
Dayle Penington
Bill Stewart
Harry Treadway
Mickie Young
