4. Ernest Whitfield Reeves was born on 10 Dec 1903 in North English, Liberty Township, Keyocuck, Iowa. He died on 7 Dec 1990 in Cedars Lebanon, Miami, Dade, Florida. He was buried on 12 Dec 1990 in Dade Mem. Park, Miami, Dade, Florida. He married Grace Willard Tipton on 2 May 1923 in Colorado Springs, El Paso, Colorado, USA. The marriage ended in divorce. [Parents]
Ernest Reeves married Francis Mae West on March 5, 1948 in Grand
Junction, Colo. Francis had four children from a previous marriage.
1. Rose Emily McCurdy- born 14 April 1938
2. Jessie Mae McCurdy- born 5 July 1940
3. James Henry Jr. (McCurdy), still born
4. Joyce Faye (McCurdy), died at 4 months
5. Grace Willard Tipton was born on 25 Sep 1904 in Green Forest, Carroll, Arkansas. [Parents]
Grace Willard Tipton was born on Sept. 25, 1904 in Green Forest,
Ark. She went to school, as a child, in Green Forest to
"Parker School". This little 1 room building provided the teaching
facilities for grades 1 through 7.
Grace was a farm girl, small and petite with black hair and brown
eyes. Her family moved to Colorado when she was 11 years old. The
trip to Colorado was her first opportunity to see a black man (a
porter on the train). After seeing Eastern Colorado for the first
time she remarked that it was a desolate and terrible place.
One day, while the Tipton girls were at school, a bad snow storm
developed. The girls prepared to go home. Mae, 13 years old had only
a light coat, Grace 13, and Clarice 11 had heavier coats and a scarf.
It was a long way home by way of the road and was very cold and
windy. Mae suggested that it would me shorter to cut straight through
the fields for a more direct route home. They started across the
field and soon realized they had walked too far. They were lost.
They couldn't see anything, but they continued to walk until they ran
into a barbed wire fence. The fence gave them a guide so they followed
it until they came to a small building. It was an outhouse, but
at least it was someplace they could go to get out of the wind and the
intense cold. Inside, they found papers lying on the floor. They
wished that they had some matches so they could light the paper on fire
but, naturally they had none. I'm sure the thought crossed their mind
that a house must be near, somewhere, but where? As cold as they were,
going outside to look probably was the last thing they wanted to do.
Finally, a man came into the outhouse to dump a bed pan and found the
girls huddled inside. The farmer took the girls into the house where
they were tended to by the farmers' wife. (Just a stroke of luck had
kept those 3 girls from being frozen to death.) Some years later,
Grace' sisters, Ruby and Mae, had a similar experience. During a
blizzard Ruby went out to the barn, about 200 feet from the house, to
take care of some calves. Mae followed her to the barn with only a
coat and scarf. They made it to the barn ok, but when trying to return
to the house they became lost.
They crawled along on their stomachs to avoid the wind. Mae became
exausted and started to feel warm and wanted to curl up in the snow.
About this time, Ruby came upon a mound of earth that she recognized
as being the fruit cellar. Mae wanted to go to sleep, but Ruby now
knowing where she was dragged her into the house.
The girls helped in the fields and came home and milked 16 cows
and separated the creme. The girls had to hunt the cows and
bring them in before they could milk them. One day a thunder and
lighning storm broke while Grace was hunting for a cow. She ran for
the house while her father hunted for her on horse back. Luckily
nothing happened except a very scary experience.
It was a tough life on the farm for the Tipton girls, especially
after their mother, Celia, got sick and was confined to a wheel
chair. Much of the burden for housework and other duties that
had been the mothers job now fell on Grace. Grace was expected to
do her share of work in the field and still come home and do
the needed work in the home. The reason Grace was saddled with so
much work was because Ruby her older sister had gotten married and
her husband, Davy went off to fight in World War 1. Then Mae, the
next oldest sister, went to live with Ruby; probably to escape the
never ending work at home. I believe it was during this time that
Ruby and Mae nearly froze to death going to the barn. Anyway, with
both Ruby and Mae out of the house the burden of work fell upon Grace.
Grace married Ernest Reeves on May 2, 1923. She had many hard
times and enteresting experiences that I will try to relate here.
The first year Ernest and Grace were married they moved onto
the "Spear" Place. They had plenty of land and were able to
borrow equipment from friends and relatives as needed. Also
Ermests' dad, Wesley Whitfield was very good to help out, but
in spite of favorable conditions a profitable crop did not happen.
The following year they moved to the "Bearage" Pxace and the next
year to the "Poncello" Place. Each year it was the same, not enough
money to take care of the family.
When Grace married she kept one of her dads mares and the mare
had a colt. Shortly after the birth the mare was struck by lightning.
Grace bottle fed the colt and raised it as a pet. She also had a dog
she really became attached to by the name of Patty. This was a German
Shepard pup that had been sired by her fathers dog, Pal. Pal was
famous in the family because he could go get all the cows, horses and
mules from the pasture and put them in the proper stalls in the barn.
One day Ernest and Grace wanted to go to Colorado Springs so
they left Keith at Clarice and Giffords place and probably left
Gilbert at Wesley Whitfields because Gilbert always loved to go
there to play with the boys. So Ernest and Grace left for "the
Springs" knowing the boys were taken care of. Keith, about 2 years
old was left with Clarice. He disappeared for a moment and Clarice
thought he had gone out to the blacksmith shop with Gifford. Gifford
didn't know Keith was at the house. The minute Clarices' back was
turned, Keith took off and walked all the way home, which was about
one half mile. It was quite cold outside and the little boy only
had on a light jacket. Grace hadn't planned on the boy being out
in the weather. Keith being too small to open the door at home soon
set down by the warmest place he could find which was a tree in the
front yard. The next door neighbor, a fellow named Arthur Morgan
happened to stop by for something and found little Keith sitting
under the tree. He asked the boy "what are you doing here alone?"
Keith said, "my dad and mom are gone and I'm cold". Apparently,
Keith was able to tell the man that he had been at Clarice and
Giffords house because he took the boy to their house and asked them
if they were suppose to be watching him. Grace said this incident was
almost a reinactment of a dream she had involving Keith in which she
found him out in the cold with a frozen rabbit in his arms.
There had been advertisements for help in harvesting fruit in
Western Colorado. So, after several unsuccessful years at farming
they loaded their belongings in the old car and headed out.
Ernest and Grace, along with their 3 children, Gilbert, Keith, and
Hugh plus dog, Patty arrived in Palisade around June or July of 1932.
The fruit harvest had not yet begun so the jobs were scarce, but there
were lots of people in the area in response to the help wanted
advertisements. Grace didn't have a tent for the family so the three
kids slept in the car while Ernest and Grace slept on the ground just
outside. Cooking facilities amounted to a large fire pit with stones
around it and a piece of tin across the top. Six families used this
fire pit to cook their meals. The first sunday after they arrived
Grace was cleaning her pans at the creek. The fine sand made a good
cleaner and Grace worked very hard to brighten up her pans. A lady came
down to talk to her. After awhile, the lady asked Grace why she worked
So diligently when the open fire would just get the pans black again.
Grace told her that she loved her pans and could not stand to see them
so black. This so impressed the lady that she went to get her husband.
Soon she returned with her husband. Grace just kept working on the
pans. After a few moments, the man said, "how would you like to
have a stove to cook on?" Grace said, "oh I'd love that". Then the
man said, "how would you like to have a tent to sleep in?" Grace said
she really turned around and looked at the man then. Grace asked the
man what she needed to do. He explained that he was a Nazarine
minister in charge of collecting food donations for the needy. he told
her that all she had to do was operate the charity food supply tent
for the transient people who came in and to give out food according
to their needs. He said their would be plenty of food and milk for her
and her family. Grace said this came at a good time because they were
almost flat broke and were using what little money was left in the kids
piggy bank.
Grace operated the charity food supply tent and often cooked up
large kittles of beans or other food and gave it out to the people
because many of them didn't have cooking facilities. One day a big
nice looking man came to the tent and started talking to Grace. She
asked him his name and he said it was English. Grace said that sure
is a funny name. Pretty soon, the man left and Grace didn't think
any more about it. Later, some people brought him back to the tent
because he had passed out from lack of food. Grace fed the man and
asked him why he hadn't asked for food when he was talking to her. He
said he was just to proud to ask for welfare. Grace said, "you don't
have to be ashamed to ask for this food thats what it'ts here for. I'm
living off this same food myself". The man went on to tell her there
was fruit all over the area, but it didn't belong to him and he was
not about to steal it. Grace gave the man a quart of milk, bread and
other food when he got ready to leave. That was the last she ever saw
of the man, he never returned.
It didn't take Grace long to make friends in the area. She worked
at a variety of jobs such as a grader in the packing house. It was
her job to inspect the fruit as it came up the conveyer belt and to
pick out the culls. She started out on this job as the lowest grader
and worked up to the top. She became the final inspector before the
fruit was boxed for shipment. She says the head inspector (foreman)
came by and asked her, "what is the matter with your culls, they
look just fine to me." Grace said, "they all have split seeds in
them." The inspector bet her they didn't and proceeded to cut a
peach in half. The knife went right through the peach because it had
a split seed. Grace said the inspector never looked at her fruit after
that. They said they really liked Grace as an inspector because they
never had a bit of trouble selling her peaches.
Grace became very good friends with a lady named Mrs. Raleigh.
This lady told Grace her family could move into her chicken house
if she wanted to. Grace took her up on the offer and proceeded to
give the chicken house a real good cleaning. She said the place
wasn't too bad. It had 2 rooms, which allowed her and Ernest to have
a separate room from the boys. The floor had large cracks in it, but
she covered those with rugs and other materials. After the fruit
season was over Grace got jobs cleaning houses for various ladies in
town. She charged .25 cents an hour. This gave her an income of
$2.00 per day. Grace said for that amount of money you could get a
good supply of groceries at the store. One of the ladies Grace worked
for was named "Mrs. Port. This lady was elderly and somewhat disabled
and could't speak very good, but Grace soon learned to understand the
lady and to take good card of her, do the cooking and housekeeping.
Grace quit the job after about 2 months because Mrs. Ports daugter,
who had a home of her own kept coming into the house giving Grace
orders and criticizing her work.
One family Grace mentioned from Palisade was Grandma and Grandpa
Yeager. I don't think they are any relation. They became really
attached to Graces' youngest child, Hugh. The Yeagers used to pick
up Hugh every morning for quite a long time and take card of him all
day long. They bought him so many clothes that he became the best
dressed kid she had.
Eventully, Grace and Ernest bought a small home in Palisade for
somewhere around $250.00. They were able to trade this home in for
a small farm in Fruitvale, Colo. The price on the farm was double or
more, but it had so much more to offer the family. This farm became
Graces' pride and joy. It had a Mull berry tree in the from yard and
a large barn in the back. The Vangundys lived on one side of the
place and the Flints lived just across the road. You could always
count on hearing Mr. Vangundy every morning because he had a very bad
cough. The farm had all the conveniences such as an outside toilet
and a coal burning stove.
Hard times came upon the family and they had to rent out the farm and
move into a railroad car on Orchard Mesa. This was the only way they
could keep up the payments on the farm. Mr. Tilman Smith had given
Ernest a job taking care of one of his orchards. I believe it was
Orchard number 5. One day while living up on the Mesa Gilbert and
asked Grace if she would cook up some frog legs if they caught the
frogs. Grace agreed thinking they will never catch any frogs. To her
surprise the boys had already caught the frogs. She got out her
skillet, heated it up and put in the frog legs. When the pan got real
hot the frog legs would just jump out of the pan. She had to put a
second pan on top to keep the legs in the pan. When the legs were
cooked they all agreed that it was a real good treat and Grace was
willing to cook all the legs the boys could catch.
Hugh was still pretty small at this time and one day he was playing
on one of the railroad cars, he tryed to open one of the trap doors on
top of the box car. He made the mistake of dropping the door with one
of his big toes just inside. The heavy door almost severed the end off
his toe.
This was not the only bad experience on Orchard Mesa. Ernest was
suppose to be irrigating the orchard and made the mistake of going
to sleep with the water running and the orchard got flooded. This
was not the first mistake Ernest had made so Tilman Smith fired him.
This event cost the family the job that was saving the farm.
7. Thelma Grace Wayburn was born on 19 Dec 1917 in Wenatchee, Washington. [Parents]