FATHER TO THE CHILDREN NAMED ABOVE:
"Jim" James Norman Tredway (J. N.) was born February 5, 1856 in Tennessee right  before the Civil War.  He died  December 13, 1925 outside of Bonham and is buried at Whiterock Cemetery, Bailey Texas.  

Do you remember any of your Grandad John's brothers and sisters?
Oh, that was way back yonder out of my recollection, I believe.  I was a kid when Grandpa John Treadway died.  Grandmother's
name was Kizy.  She died after Grandpa Treadway died.  Both died in Tennessee pretty close together in time.
GRANDADDY & GRANDMOTHER OF BURCH & PEARL ON SUSAN CLOUSE'S SIDE OF THE FAMILY:
 JOHN CLOUSE (JOHNNY Burch was named after him and Burch got a pig for his name.)  All of us kids that was named John after him, we got a pig. I remember that.  I recollected mighty well. He must have been born in Tennessee; He has lived there as long as I can remember.  He died up there on the mountain.  I forgot the name of the mountain;
 he owned a farm up there.

 Did he die before Grandpa Treadway did?
Yes, he was older ..Grandpa Clouse was.

Can you remember John Clouse?
Yes sir,  I remember John Clouse.
 
You must have been a little old kid when he died.
Yea, I was just a little old kid. We used to go up there to Grandma's and have the biggest time in the world.  I can even recollect...do you see that scar on that finger?  Yea.  Well I can remember when I did that.. I was a little bitty ole kid and Oliver Clouse, he had a big red apple in his hand and he had a knife in his hand and I did not know he had the knife and I knocked that apple out of his hand and that knife cut my finger, cut the end right off...just a little of it.  Things like that you can recollect.

Now what about your grandmother on your mother's side of the family?
Well, she was called Grandma Clouse and Aunt Linnie.  Everyone else in Board Valley called her Aunt Linnie.  That's what the ?Kumgart's? called her.

Do you remember any of her brothers and sisters?
Naw, that's out of my date there.
 
 And your Grandpa on your Mother's side...do you remember any of his brothers and sisters ..they would have been great uncles and aunts?
No...
 
So you do not remember any of your great aunts and uncles on either side, do you?
 No...I don't.  That is getting way back.  They were old people when I was a little bitty kid.  My grandma & grandpa on both sides were old when I was a kid.  So I do not remember any of great grandma's or grandpa's.  I never heard them talk about them.  That is getting a long way back.  Yea, Bobby, that is about as far as I can recollect back is my grandfathers and grandmothers. I remember them and I seen them.  Pearl didn't see them all.

How far back can you remember in Tennessee?  I mean before you ever came to Texas the first time?
I was just a little old kid; I'd go down there and play in the creek.  I don't guess I was over 3 or 4 years old.  I could carry the porch bucket and go down to the spring.  I was just walking good and getting around.

How old were you when you came to Texas the first time?
 Well, Bobbie, I think I was eight or nine years old.  You see that was before the country was settled up.

Well, what did you come to Texas for?
Well we just got in a wagon and joined a wagon train, you know.  Uncle Silas Ledbetter and Uncle Sam Selby and Uncle Will Randolph and all of them there bunched up and all them was going to come west.  There was a bunch of us besides what ?????   Sometimes there would be thirty wagons, clean up???

Well now with you just being nine or ten years old, can you remember that first wagon train?
You bet I do; I walked; I got behind one of those wagons and walked.  I recollect coming on the Mississippi River.  I will never forget that. We hauled seven wagons across ???, pulled them across with horses.  Big white horses, one this away and one that a way. And they pulled a roller. ... Texas...   Uncle Jim stopped and we stayed with him and made???.  We had feed, hay & horses.  There was an old cow standing out there by the fire, you know. And I was out there just a fiddling around and I thought how funny it would be to slip up there  and grab that old cow and make her jump.  Well she jumped all right and let me have it right about there and she chilled me out and it was a long time before I could holler.  I finally hollered and they come out and got me.  I won’t forget that either; I was a little feller.

Well, when ya'll was coming to Texas the first time on that wagon train, what did you do walk part of the time and ride part of the time?
Oh we would walk and ride and that is when Nora got lost in a bear trail.  And we found her way down the cane break, down a hill. Well talk about a wagon train bunch a scattering when she got lost, she was just a walking baby and she walked away from the rest of them and she would turn around and  just call yoo whoo and walk on down that bear trail. And my Daddy  found her just before she went into the cane breaks at the bottom and said she would turn around and say whoopee and look a little bit and walk on down that trail.  They was all hunting her.  Yea, I will never forget that.  There are things, I tell you, you will never forget.

Well what did you do?  Did you get up early and get started on that wagon train?
Yea, pretty early; we'd travel about 25 miles a day, might make 30.

Well that is a long way in a wagon then...25 - 30 miles a day. Did you have any kind of a road to travel on?
Well, My God, No, Bobbie, just go across country.

 Wasn't no trail or nothing?
 No, you just take off through Indian Territory. When we come through there, it was just a beat out trail.

Well how did you know which direction to go?
Well we was traveling west; that's all we knowed.
 
Well was you planning to travel to anyplace in particular when you left Tennessee?  Did you have plans to go to Texas?
 Yea, we said West, out west that is all they could think of I guess is to come west.
 
They hadn't decided to come to North Texas or anyplace like that?
 Naw, Naw no certain place you know, they were going west. New settled country; it was new settled too, people were scattered.

Well, did ya'll see anybody on the way?
No, we traveled for days and never see a soul.
 
See any Indians or anything?
Oh yea, when we came through Indian territory now we'd meet them Indians but I reckon they were uncivilized I reckon but
they weren't wild but they couldn't tell you nothing.  My Dad
did make them understand to go to the next place --the next little town and they would take their hand and hack on that tree and they showed him. They would hack three times and say follow
that.  And they told you what to follow ..to follow those three
hacks on that tree,  through the woods, now, across the prairie.
We came through sage grass higher than the wagon. There'd just
be two tracks all the way.
 
Just had it beat down for the wagon to go through.
We traveled through that kind of place.  Oh, Lord it was awful.
 
Well how did ya'll camp at night?
Oh, we had a tent and they would put us kids in it and we'd probably build a big fire right in front of this tent.  We'd get in
lots of places they would sit up to keep people from stealing our horses.  Now in them days, people would steal your horses and
we would tie all the horses around the front of this fire and they would sit in front of this tent. Now I've knowed them to do it lots
of nights to keep somebody from stealing their horses.  There was everything going on in them days. Boy it was tough.
 
How long did it take you to come to Texas that first time?
Well it took us they said 6 months ..we come in part of the winter and part of the summer.  We was 6 months on the road.  I know
one place, we was in  some mountain or other and an old woman and a old man had a big ole log house.  It was cold and they didn't have no wood up. They had some wood cut.  My uncle, he hooked the brown mule to a sled and went up there and sledded down a
lot of wood.  They had  2 big fireplaces, one on each end of that house.  Well we bedded down in there and never seen anything
like them fireplaces.  We built a fire on each end.  I know it was cold that night...it was snow. We got by that; it was way in the mountains somewhere like Calmich, I don't know which mountain it was.  We crossed  Arbuckle and all them mountains back in there. Calmich Mountains, we come through all them.  Boy, talk about rough.

How did you get those wagons up those mountains?
Well, we double teamed when one team couldn't pull his wagon
up, he'd just hook another team on the front of the tongue  and then he'd come back and get the other wagon. Poor Dad.  It'd be
a long time to get  to the top of that one mountain ...pull one to
the top and then they'd come back and get another one.

Where did ya'll first stop at when you come to Texas the first time?
 Orangeville.  Do you know where Orangeville, Tx is?  Well it's up there between Canton and Whitewright...right in there between Trenton and Whitewright.
 
Well what did you do? Homestead some land?
Now we rented and stayed there 2 years and then they wanted to
go back.  So we all bundled up and went back to Tennessee.

How did you go back to Tennessee?
Wagon.  We got into a pretty good wagon train with some kin folks got lined up to go.  There was Uncle Sam Selby, Uncle Silas Ledbetter, Uncle Wes and Vanis..a big crowd of those kinfolks..a pretty good wagon train.  Going back East...don't know why they wanted to go East.  We met one feller, he was going West and he had it on the side of his wagon bed "West Texas or Bust".  So it wasn't too long and he come back going east and was a ranting
and a raving.

How old was you when ya'll headed back to Tennessee?
Oh, I don't know, I was 10 or  11 or 12.  We just stayed in Texas a couple of years.  I was about 12 years old I guess.
 
Well, what did ya'll do for food on those wagon trains?
 Oh, we could get food along the road; corn was 10 cents a bushel. You could pick a bushel of corn. They had those old grist mills
and they grind meal.  They lived on corn bread, eggs. Every once
in a while somebody would have a crop of potatoes and we would buy a sack of potatoes.  That is the way it was on the road.

So you had to have a little money on the road?
 Oh, yea, you had to have a little money.
 
Well what did they do about feeding their livestock?
 Well you buy that too.  You could buy it cheap. They'd buy hash and corn. In those days everything was cheap.  My Dad when he
got there, he had about $1300 or $1400; I understand Sam Selby
had more; he had about  a ?thousand?.  My God, you could go a
long way on a little money back then. It didn't cost so much.  They left there with enough money to make the trip on.  You didn't start out empty handed.

Well, what did they do when they got back to Tennessee?
 Well went to farming, like we do... Back on the farm....  Raising corn, peas, punkins, everything to eat, potatoes.

Did you go back to the same place you started from?
No, we didn't go back to the same place.  We went back to a different place. We just rented a place, you know. We raised 3 or 4 crops. We paid so much of the fruit of the farm to rent the farm.  I don't know how they fixed that up.  They didn't raise no cotton in those days back there. Wasn't no cotton.  I've seen Moma raise a little of it to make quilt cotton out of....pick the seed out of it to make quilt cotton.

Did ya'll raise any tobacco back then?
Yea, raised tobacco and everything to eat.  We didn't buy nothing but a little coffee and sugar.  And I believe that is about all. Might of got a little salt...the rest of the food was raised.  Now that is how we lived.

Now how long was you back in Tennessee before you decided to come back to Texas again?
Well, we was back there a long time.  Well I was 17-18-19 years old the last time.  Yea, I was big enough I wanted me a horse and buggy and I was like the rest of these boys, I wanted something to go on.

 Now what kind of school did you go to back in Tennessee when
you was growing up?
 Well we went to a country school.  where there was about 75 to 80  at a time. They'd have school here one week and somewhere else the next week.

 Did you go to school in Texas while you were there?
 No, the only schooling I had was back in Tennessee.

How much schooling did you have?
Well we just got to go in the winter time, three months.  We had
to walk; we had to walk about 5 miles in the cold, around the mountain, down to Yankee town...a little place named Yankee town.  There was a big school down there.  We walked that for 3 months. That's all we got.  We walked to that school backward
and forward.

How many years did you do that?
Oh, Lord, I don't know.  Well, I know of 3 years we did that ...
going to Yankee Town.  I don't remember, Bobbie.

Well when did you start working in the coal mine?
 Oh, I was a pretty good sized boy when we went to the mines.  I first went in there I was a turning latches, traps ..we called trappin ?? turn latches here  and there would be a ???anser????  come in here and one come in here   rise on these latches and there's another board way down here on some more latches come in and he'd turn it and he's wait for me and he would turn this one too
and I'd hold this one up here with a lamp and the lamp ?? go ? out? that when you and you'd wave it across and that wave meant he'd stop.  He'd turn this latches go straight through here to anser and then he had to turn these latches back  and let this ??one come in ?????Things run together in these mines.
 
Well did you work in the mine some?
Oh, yea, about 7 miles,  5 or 6 miles back under the mountain
after I went down that cave.

How long did you work in the mine?
I worked maybe 2 years.
 
Did they pay pretty good?
 $1.50 a day...paid the mulers out $1.50 a day, paid the trappers  $1.50 a day, paid the loaders out on the tip $1.50 a day.

And you was a trapper?
I was a trapper and I finally got to be a car greaser and then I got to scraping out a machine in the mine at $1.50 a day.  There wasn't no difference in pay...same thing.
 
Well did they ever have any cave-ins while you were there or anything?
Oh, no, well yea, I seen several rooms cave in that's where slate
fell on mules and stuff like that. slate come down that slate would be anywhere from 2-1/2 to 3 feet thick--that slate.  That was where they were getting that coal out.  If you didn't keep it plugged out
of there it weighed down break up, fall down and it will fall on ya.  And they watched that.  If they had some that was held up with posts...they put posts in just so fer apart, you know...then they would come in with the top man...take him to the top boy he would go down every one of those entrances and he would take that slate mallet and big wedges and I helped an old nigger carry his tools one time, he was a top taker and he wouldn't let me get under there.   He said boy you stay back out from under there.  You stay right where I put you.  He'd go way back under there and knock them props back start knocking them out ... and you could hear that stuff just crack and pop, snap when you are looking across there...and he would come out here and get en all knocked out and he would take a big wedge and drive a wedge in and that whole doggone thing would just come  down, 2 or 3 foot thick...that slate is heavy to hold ..whole lot...it is lots heavier that coal.  Then they would have to bring up the sledge  hammers and wedge it open. put it on the car and send it to the outside.  Had a big slate dump outside...carry it out, take it out the shaft and dump it in the slate box,  dump it out of there and haul it off down in the dump... another old big car.  That is way they worked it .Yea, Oh Lord, I recollect that just like it was yesterday.  All that stuff.
 
Now you were working as a trapper ?  You'd go down in the mine
in a cage?
Oh, Yea, yea, I went down the shaft...there was 2 cages..  one on each side of the other and they had  timber ..big timbers...just 6 inches ...well I was down there greasing cars one day and I heard something fall back into this stump  and my cager he just turns around, you know, the other way so if we fell he'd bail out  and we bailed 2 of em out and they didn't catch up there.. there was rods up there to catch hold of...pole to keep from jerking you down...man when that cage...sometimes it is just a flash ..and it jerked them down on that cage and one of them was laying with his head  off the edge of that cage...right here and the other one he come through that 6 inch place, now.  And he was just like a rag and we got him out in the sun.  I was a cager and I said something fell in this stump, cager and he held the cage, you know.  Stop, stop one of those men was laying on the slate ...and he come back in a couple of days and ???? got him out.  Lifted him up just exactly  like he was a rag ..just wadded him up.  I saw that.. I was in that cage when it ran out.  I was in the grease car ...and the other had his head beat up.   That 2 men got killed  right there on the cable not knowing how to ride it out.   Then I learned how to catch that cage there they wouldn't jerk me down  there.  I have gone down in there and carrying my oil...had to go to the top to get my oil....I would get 5 gal cans that all you could get in that cage...when I stepped in that cage got hold of that  rod and down I went. That ...is all that saved me  it went as fast as....down in that hole.  ....... That is how fast they would put you down there when it is full of coal....That thing would just fly.  You are supposed to take a man up slow...ah,  they wouldn't....pull coal.......push down with every i hand ...I could...and my hands...you'd go down so fast.  Get right close to the bottom it would catch just like that ..They had it on cables...they would pull mules out every  Saturday night they would take them out ......Got back down the mine the same way...They had to pump air down in the mine  all the time in the mines...water pumping out...it looks like a small river coming out of there...all the time those pumps were pumping water to the outside.  Yea, them air pumps had to run that’s what 8 or 9 was a big boiler...a big boiler had that much pressure.  Pump that air down there and that water out.  And that's the way it works. We ought to show people now what they had then.  I did a little of everything around that mine.  Worked there 2 years, I believe, nearly 3 years.  I got tired of working in the mine and I went down there and they were pulling lumber up an incline.  Lots of lumber .....and they had a wide plank and it was all I could do to stretch out, Bobbie, and get a hold of each corner put it in the box car.  lots of lumber ..that was the whitest lumber I ever saw ......It was all I could do. We stacked lumber out there for the longest.  I told them I got tired of working in the mine.  $1.50 an hour now.

Well, did your Daddy work in the mines, too?
No, he worked on the outside; he never worked inside.  He went up there and dropped some of the slack cars and coal cars  down here at the tip.  Set them under there and then he would take the loads out.  That was his job.  He would get hold of them sometimes and he got hold of one he couldn't hold...big ole load of iron rail and he was tracking down the mine.  Here, it was coming down there and they threw cross ties and everything else in front of it and it just went right on.  My Dad tightened up the ..... and jumped off.  It came on through and there was an old slack car over here and it was on slack track and hollered for me to get off that slack car and I jumped off on this other car and it came through and it busted that one and it knocked that slack car out ..took it plumb off the end of the track down yonder.  That took 2 engines  to pull it back, to ever get it back on the track;  That old railroad car had about had it.  It was.....  My Dad couldn't hold it; he didn't try  he just  jumped off and let her go.  That is what the boss told him.  He said if you find some you can't hold...get off of them and let them go.  They'll stop down at the end of the track maybe.

Did any of your brothers work in the mine with you?
Yes, Mance and Frank both worked in the mine. Walter worked there a while.  He went to work for Bon Air and  he got his finger under a bumper of those old cars and he slipped off and it mashed some of his fingers off and busted them all to pieces.  He quit and he never worked there again. Then he went to work for the Ravenscroft lines.  It was a different lines, you see.  It wasn't Bon Air.  He decided to  work for Bon Air for a while but after he got
his fingers busted up  well he went to College.  He said he wasn't going to work in any old mine.  He was going to get himself an education and he did.  Walter had a good education.  He went to high school right there on the mountain....  Stayed with Uncle
Will Randolph a long time.  Then after he had his leg took off.  Then it set up in his back.  He didn't last long then.  He died at
Bull Creek.. where we lived out there so long...little ole place called Oak Creek had a camp house out there.  That is where we lived.

Well did your Daddy have any property back there  that  ya'll lived on or did ya'll just rent all the time?
Naw, he bought 2 places while we were in Tennessee.  We lived there, I don't remember how many years.  He built one on Cherry Creek.  He traded hogs for that place in the mountain.  Now we raised hogs in the mountain.   We had 25 - 30 hogs.  Weighed over 200 pounds a piece.  I recollect    hogs...mountain men down at the valley store  We hauled them down there in an open wagon.  And
he got enough out of them hogs to buy that place...down there a little place...Oh I guess it was about 20 acres.  something like 15 -20.  Well we had us a home now; we built barns on it, big barns, had horses.  ......Always had a big field of corn...that is the way
you lived in them days.  We had good days.

What year did you come back to Texas?
 I don't remember what year  we come back now. Pearl might  remember.
 
Well how old was you?
I was getting way up about 18-19 years old when we first come
back the last time.

Well you remember that trip a lot better that the first trip don't ya?
 Oh yea, we came on a train.   We did not come back in a wagon.
We made a round trip in wagons but that was it; that was enough wagons...a wagon that far...I tell you.  The last time we come from the mines, you know,  We come; we bought a ticket and come on
the train.  We got on the train at the mines.
 
How long did it take to come on the train?
Oh, it didn't  take too long. I forget now. I know we had to stay overnight or 2 someplace.  We didn't never go to a hotel.   My mother thought there was some hijackers.  They came out and it was raining .  We stayed in the depot and had the windows up....Us kids was laying over here and the rain got to blowing in and ..He told me to  pull that window down.  And 2 guys standing on the other side of the window. One of them, he came in there and laid down beside my Daddy.  Now he was a stranger.. we didn't know him...my mother didn't.  And she got up and sat up and  when he came in and laid down beside my Daddy she got up and sat up.  Now that rain was blowing in on us kids and she went to the window and said you guys get back away from this window I'm going to pull it down .. It is blowing rain in on these kids.   PUT IT DOWN HE SAID.  Now she just got up and sat up and she called my  Daddy.   He let on like he was asleep. After  Daddy got upset at them and he got up and went on out. Dad said I guess them there boys got him and I said no, mother said he's gone to that bunch.  that is what she figured...gone to the same bunch  She thought it was hijackers...................

Who all came back the 2nd time to Texas?  the whole family?
Well there was a lot that came that was sort of scattered out that time.  I think we all come back...Uncle Mance,  Uncle Silas Ledbetter, Sam Selby..he came back on the train he never come back on the wagon.  All of them come back to Texas.  We came back on a train the last time.....They sold out everything they had back there when they took the train and come out here the last time and they stayed out here most of them. ... didn't go back We never did go back. Selby's never did go back.  My Uncle Warren never did go back.

Well what part of Texas did you go through when you came back?
Oh we come from Spartie through to Cookesville  ...Cookville
on in to Texas.
 
Where did you come back to?  The same place in Texas?
Let's see no we come out East of Bonham.  Out here at the
old Rags place...Did you
 ever hear of that?  There was an old Ragley ranch out there...That's where we landed ..East of Bonham.  out toward Gober. That is where we came through the last time we came back.

What did ya'll do after you come back?
Well we farmed; Paw went and bought 4 mules.  We went to
farming out there at that old Ragley Ranch.  Farmed out there
for a year or two.  Then we moved to Bailey, Doctor Lehman's place...one hundred acres...Dad rented one hundred acres and me and him run it.  .... We was out there 7 years.  Then moved out
there to Leonard for a year or two.  One year ....I had moved to Oklahoma by that time..  I lived up there a year or two.
 
How did you wind up in Oklahoma?
 I got married up there.

What was you doing up there?
 Oh, I went up there with my uncle; He lived up there and I was up there picking cotton.
 
Which Uncle was that?
 Selby.  Sam Selby.  He was up there beside Paul Valley at Peolla. Hooked up with  Patsy and finally got married.  I worked for David Stephens a little, Patsy's Dad; he never did raise much cotton.  Sam Selby was neighbor to David Stephens.  He lived right there close to the Stephens place.  Selby ran 100 acres ..Selby did.  He ran a big outfit every year.  He had lots of stock and lots of  ???  David had about 100 acres.  that is the old homeplace ..still the old homeplace up there now.  Like I was telling Rose now ...that place and the old homeplace...those boys bought.  they will all get their part out of it.  She will get a pretty good stake out of it.  I don't know what that land sells for.  If it is like down here, it is high, I tell you..  You could get a lot of money out of that thing.  ...90 acres in it  and I think that old homeplace had a 100 acres in it.

Well how did you wind up with the boss's daughter?
Well, I don't know ...I got to writing to her and went with her a
few times when I was up there.  I wrote to her and wound up...

You wrote to her after you came back down here then?  Yea, you wrote back & forth and then you just went up there and got married.
That is the only way I know.  That is what happened.

Then ya'll lived there ?
I lived for 25 years in Oklahoma.
 
After you got married to my Mother's mother, Patsy.  How long did ya'll live there?
Oh, I don't know.  several years ..I stayed there 3 or 4 years   ...
Dave said to stay in one place but of course we wanted to travel around to different places. That was what was wrong with my thinking.   If I'd of stayed in one place like he said, God, I would have owned the whole country up there.

How long was you married before she died?
Oh, I don't remember.  Well, we were married several years before Rose was born.

Did ya'll ever  have any other children?
Naw,  never did have one she had the flu and they taken it from her and that was the ????cutest kid I ever saw in my life.  Now they say you can't see nothing after it's all done away with but shortly  I saw  an exquisite thing and I was in Sand Springs in Oklahoma.
 I don't know.  Something come over me and well, they actually carried her off down there and she's dead and I ?hid? ?the kid?...they'd been telling me that she was dead now.  And she said
I am going to carry Patsy and the baby, ?Seth? home with me

Well the baby you are talking about is my mother?
No, that wasn't Rose, your mother; that was the one they took
from her.  She was a great big little gal and when I come out of
the hospital she was afraid of me.  She wouldn't come to me.   Now Patsy died and so they said the baby lived 2 or 3 hours.  And they buried them in Paoli Graveyard and you know I imagine...now I just imagine this...I don't know whether this is true or not..that I felt like I went through the air.  I felt like I was standing on the edge of her grave.. I Looked down there and I said How in the world did I see through all that dirt.   It was just like a flash.  There they was just as plain as that right there.  And that was the purtiest baby I ever saw...looked like a big doll....Patsy just as nice and ......  Somebody might not believe that but it's true. That is what I saw.

Now you were sick for a long time after that weren't you?
 Oh, God, yes. I nearly died.

 Now who took care of my mother?
She stayed with my mother and me.  I took her after I got up with the flu and I made the harness long .....and I'd carry her with me lots of times back up in Oklahoma.   Look around there and I'd pick her up and take her back to Texas.  Yea, I kept her with me a whole lot.    Different places.  One old woman out there at Fort Table now said Oh, Lord I wish I had that little girl.  I said there's lots of em.  She said I tell you what I will do; I'll heir her half of my place; I've just got one boy.  I'll live right in the middle of them... ..  give her half of it and give him half of it if you will just let me keep her out here.  I wouldn't give her up...I said No, NO I don't believe I can stand that.  So I carried her off with me. Carried her back to Texas.
 
Is she the one that you were talking about a while ago that was afraid of you?
Yea. When I got out of the hospital, she was at Liza's, you see.  He had a whole lot of fellows to come in there to see who was going to take her.  Your mother, to take care of her till I got well or died.  And Liza she walked out there and found out what they were planning on and she said Naw, that kid ain't going to leave here let me tell ya'll.  She's going to stay here until Burch either dies or gets well.  If I get well Burch is going to have her not somebody else and so that blocked that.  She stood up to em  and Daddy come up there and after I shipped me back, I shipped her back with me.
                        In a boxcar... in a baggage car.....I come back to Texas on a cot...I was down a year before I could ever do much walking.
 
Was that  a big flu epidemic back then?
 Yea,    They died so fast they couldn't hardly bury them
.
           When was that?
  Well that was way back, well back in World War I..  You don't go back that far do you.  No, not hardly.  That was World War I when that happened...I registered at Winneywood  for World War I. I weighed 90 pounds.  I had a fever every other day--chill for a year.
I thought I never was going to get well.   But I had ever day chills, and there was a big Indian...he weighed me and he come on up to me and he told me I was too durn light I wouldn't make a good soldier boy.  I just weighed 90 pounds ..just a walking shadow....why I was poor...and this Big Indian came out and he weighed 350 pounds.  and he got on the scale and I was a looking
at him.  He said, Hell, your too heavy...you wouldn't make a good soldier. I'll never forget that. ..that happened right there at Winneywood.
 
So they wouldn't take you to the army then?
No, I was just too poor,  and they never did call me.  Old Indian told  me well I' guess we'll rest a while.   I said I need down at Jessie James.  This Indian's name was  Jessie James.  Those old to rest I don't know what about you.    Called him Jessie James...I hollered.  Indians looked around to see if they was going to see the real Jessie James.  He said I guess they don't want Jessie James in that war.    He weighed 350 pounds ..that was the biggest Indian that I ever saw.  Fat...

Then when you got sick you come back to this part of   Texas?
Yea,, after I got me out of the hospital... they shipped me back down here.  And that is where I stayed until I got to where I could work.  Thought I was well ..but I had spells and a lung busted...I thought I was gone then .that happened down here in Texas.  I puked - threw up and it run out of my mouth.. Oh talk about a mess, Man...Oh Lordy ...I tell you.. and then Paw, he got down a year and I made a crop for him...I got able to work and then I went ahead and took his mule and made a crop one year. So I didn't make too much ..didn't have good season...didn't raise too much corn....I told him why didn't he just sell those mules and I would just take off and work at Wade. Wasn't making much  farming...Then I struck back  in to Oklahoma.  Made all the harvest for several years ...about 7 years...

You went back to Paola?
I went back to Oklahoma, Kansas.  I worked on up into Kansas...And every year I'd take off .
What kind of  work were you doing?
 I was ...wheat harvest...I'd make anywhere from 5-7 dollars a day ..and you know down here in Texas ...they wouldn't pay but a dollar.  And I told them I better go where I can make some more money...  I might make a little more... I'd make enough every summer. ... Helped out that much.  I couldn't get ahead unless I got more than a dollar a day.
 
Well how long were you in Oklahoma before you were back in Texas again?
 Oh I don't remember...I'd work up there and come back here in Texas...work one place and then another...working around in different places..  I didn't have nothing.  I had $400 in that bank up there in San Antone and then I took the flu.  I bought a $100 worth of furniture and put it in the house and I give $40 rent for the house and he said he got half of it. ...$100 of furniture...had to take it back...I never remember going in there . We just put it in the house; that is what we done. We took the flu that night.  They carried us to the hospital and that was it.  And Bradshaw said he got half of the money back but I never did see any of it.
 
Now ya'll lived over her by Edhube when my mother got married didn't you?
Yea, Yea we lived over here by Edhube.  That is where it all happened at ...round and about I'll tell you...but Bobby, I am still making it.

Transcription by Linda Tredway Wright, great-grandaughter of Peter Mansfield Treadway & Eliza (Louisa M. Clouse) Treadway.
 (July 23-24, 1997)