Depression

John Kennedy to The Great Depression

About the time of my great-great-great grandfather Isaac Ballengee's building of the log cabin on the island now known as Hinton, WV, my great-great grandfather John Kennedy (e1788-Nov1865) was born in North Carolina. His wife's name is not recorded, however, they had 5 sons, David, John, William, Albert and Joseph T. All were born in NC.

Their son, my great grandfather David (e1825 d?), married Harriet Shelby (e1830-e1875). David and Harriet had 3 sons, DF and Moses Shelby and my Grandfather Calvin Iva; and, 2 daughters, Palestine and Nancy

Calvin Iva Kennedy (e1846-1884) was born in Alabama. He eventually settled in Camp County, Texas near Pittsburg. There he married my grandmother, Amanda Elizabeth Bynam who was born in Texas on March 5, 1858. Amanda had a twin sister and another sister, Elizabeth Ester who married Calvin's brother Moses Shelby Kennedy.

My father Joseph Thomas Kennedy was born October 6, 1881 near Pittsburg, TX. He had an older sister Olla. My father marred a woman in Camp County, Texas, however, she died shortly after giving birth to a stillborn girl.

Years later he married my mother Ollie Elizabeth Ballengee in Granite, OK.

My father's Birthplace near Pittsburg, Texas

My grandfather Calvin Iva Kennedy died in 1884 when my father was only 3 years old. His mother, Amanda Elizabeth Bynam, later remarried a man by the name of Wright and they had a son they named Henry.

I never heard my father say his stepfather's name. I heard him say several times that he hated that man to the day of his death. He would tell many stories of things that his stepfather would do to mistreat him. It was my father's job to bank the coals in the fireplace so they would stay glowing until morning when a new fire to cook breakfast would be kindled using the stored embers. He maintained that his stepfather did on more than one occasion get up and scatter the coals around so they would go out before morning. He would then whip him for not doing the job correctly and send him out with a metal can to walk during the dark morning hours a mile or so to a neighbor's house and borrow some hot coals to bring back to make the fire. He told how his stepfather would go out and hide someplace along the way and jump out of the bushes to scare him on his way back. Evidently his stepfather thought that trick was real funny. My father never got the humor of the occasion.

Growing up in east Texas during the late 1800s was a difficult one for my father. He told me that he was fourteen years old before he was ever inside of a store. The first thing he ever bought was a pair of shoes, in that store. All of his clothes were home made.

Today we enjoy the machines of our modern age. It is hard to imagine conditions otherwise. We ride rockets into space and have walked on the moon. We fly throughout the world. No place on earth is more than a couple of days away. We drive our cars across our nation in just days. We sit in our homes and watch a war taking place on the other side of the world. We receive our mail electronically from anywhere in minutes instead of the weeks or months of just a hundred years ago. I have to step back and marvel at the hardships encountered by my ancestors and my parents. When my father and mother were young there were no cars, no airplanes, no electric lights, no radio or television. Their lives were no different than the lives of families a hundred or a thousand years in the past. They rose before the morning dawn and worked throughout the day and into the dark to drag food from the ground, yet many starved if the rains were not with them. They collected wood for cooking and heating.

Laundry was done by hand and things for the home were made at home. Many children failed to escape the many diseases that struck them down before they saw 10 years of life. My mother cooked for our family of nine on a wood stove. She made lye soap in a kettle over a fire in the back yard. We churned butter with a plunger, and a water spring flowing from the ground on the north side of a tree was where we kept things cool. We had no indoor facilities, nor outdoor ones. Each had his tree some distance north of the house to hide behind. As a child I rode to school in the back of a school truck, did my homework by lamplight, and pumped water for cooking, drinking, and bathing from a well outside of the house. The first school I ever attended was Lake Creek, Greer County School.

Site of Lake Creek School

Town of Granite, Oklahona

Lake Creek school was located four miles north and one mile west of Granite, Oklahoma.

Lake Creek School was made of red granite rock quarried from the Granite Mountains towering over the town of Granite, Oklahoma.

This is the area where all my sisters and brothers were born, and where my mother and father are buried.

The previous four black and white pictures were obtained from the photo archives of the Library of Congress.7

On school days, a truck with a cover over the bed and benches down each side and in the middle, would pick us up for school. Lake Creek School was built of granite rock and had two outside storm cellars, but no facilities. The boys were assigned one section of the trees in back and the girls another. God forbid you got caught near the wrong section. For drinking water there was a tall long handled pump. With vigorous pumping of the long handle water would flow into a long pipe with small holes drilled in the top and capped on the end; water then squirted up in little squirts with each pump for drinking. If one were alone and needed a drink it was necessary to pump rapidly and get the water shooting high out of the little holes; then, run quickly around and try to get a sip of water before the pressure fell off forcing you to pump again. Needless to say, it required someone to pump while others drank.