Gladys Seay

{Below please find the Tabernacle chapter about Gladys Seay, about the day we met maybe four years ago, about the day we talked together in Ranger. She was kind to me, patient. Her family lived for a time down the sandy road from my Weekes family, mostly people I’ve never met in real life. Gladys answered all of my questions. Helped me try to understand a time I’d never visited, never imagined. Gladys passed away earlier today. I pulled this out to re-read, and heard her voice again. Her memories made me smile, and my heart break. I share her words from that day again in the hopes that you will hear her voice as well.  JDC}

History. It's a word that conjures up memories...of tests in high school we're not prepared for, of boring afternoons at some relative's house when we're kids. We get older. Make a little history of our own. Then wonder, how did we get here? What came before?

Tuesday was a day that cannot be successfully explained to a child. I've tried. Mine roll their eyes politely, as I did when I was their age. I'm writing it down though. Photographing it. Tasking myself – did I ask all the questions that kids'll want answers for someday?

I visited with Gladys Seay and her daughter Viola Boyer that Tuesday morning in Ranger. Gladys is Cheaney’s oldest living former resident at 99-years-young, born April 15, 1909. A sharper mind and a clearer memory I have not yet encountered. 

Gladys remembers Cheaney as a close-knit farming community, of hard times, sad times, and mostly of joy. It was a strange feeling, talking to a woman who actually knew the people whose stories I've been searching for – relatives, friends of hers in the community. She knew Cheaney’s historical protagonists first hand, went to church with them, sat next to them in school – they were crystal clear in her mind's eye. Because of her, I too could see them. The day was a blessing.

Gladys is the daughter of John Anderson Seay. Anderson worked a farm just east of Cheaney, along the western rim of Cook Canyon. Anderson was born 1880. Gladys lost her mom in Oklahoma, February 7, 1918 when Gladys was seven. “I regret that I never did have a mother to love for very long.”

Ironically, Gladys’ mother Pearl Jane Heaton also lost her own mom (Amanda Jane Trosper Heaton) at the age of five in 1892. Mrs. Heaton did not survive a mastectomy, performed on the kitchen table. Gladys’ father Anderson lost his own mother when he was three. Two generations of motherless daughters left behind, one raised by a motherless father.

Gladys’ dad Anderson moved the family to Texas in 1919, next year after his wife’s death. Anderson never remarried, devoting himself to raising the children and farming. He was active in the Alameda and Cheaney school boards. Gladys remembers, “As a child, I collected small stones, playing with them in the sand, pretending they were farm animals. I continued collecting stones, but quit playing in the sand.”

While Gladys was still young, Anderson’s aunt Alice Smith from Stephenville moved in. She brought along with her sixteen-year-old daughter Eula. They cared for the Seay household in exchange for room and board. Alice and Eula were also actually paid to help chop the Seays’ cotton. The gin in Ranger paid in cash, from which they got a percentage.

Gladys described the Cheaney Community throwing huge picnics and “having Christmas” down in the Cook Canyon on the Allen Ranch, near a large pond. Everyone in the community attended. It was a fun time – a break from the hard work of farming and hardscrabble life of just getting by. Gladys drove her daddy’s team pulling the cultivator through the fields, picked cotton (a 100-pound sack one day, she said), and performed whatever farm labors the day called for. Gladys was baptized in 1928 at a branch just north of Kokomo by our Brother Frank Skaggs.

Gladys remembers as a young girl being sent on horseback to the Strickler Store in Cheaney to get supplies for her dad. Her dad was an industrious worker and didn’t have time to leave the farm himself very often. Gladys remembered the store’s porch being high enough that she could slide off the horse as a small girl and onto the porch without having to dismount. The Stricklers would tie the groceries, supplies or tobacco in a feed sack over the back of the saddleless horse, then the little girl would slide back on the mare and ride home. When the family’s plow needed to be carried to Strickler’s blacksmith shop to be sharpened, Gladys did that as well. One of Anderson’s favorite sayings was “I doggies”. He was quite a man.

Gladys named some of the teachers at the Cheaney School-Mrs. Mary Wheeler, Chris Tucker and Miss Scott. Gladys listed some of the families who had places near the Seays-the Howards, Snells, Griffiths, Bartons, Weekes, and Blackwells. She remembers her daddy driving a horse-drawn scoop to dig out a tank on the Allen Place near the Cook Cemetery. Gladys described a childhood that was hard, but a family that was as happy as it could be.

Gladys was the oldest of five children, though only she and her brother Doc lived to adulthood. John Wesley “Doc” Seay was named Doc by his uncle Tommy Seay. When Doc was a boy, he hurt his ankle falling out of a wagon that was going too fast. Uncle Tommy had a horse named Doc that was similarly afflicted, so he called the boy “Doc” as well. The name stuck.

Doc ended up making a name for himself as a preacher. He surrendered to preach at the Sweet Home Baptist Church, which at that time met at the Alameda School. Sweet Home eventually rebuilt atop the foundation of the old Cheaney School, across the road from the Cheaney Church of Christ. Gladys remembers Brother Willie Skaggs riding to the church in a buggy to preach or to hold meetings. She remembers the Baptist and the Church of Christ congregations meeting every other week, as there were not enough ministers of each denomination to go around. The community attended whichever house of worship was meeting that Sunday, regardless of their professed denomination.

Gladys married Sam Seay, whose family lived to the west of Cheaney, December 21, 1925. Sam and Gladys were not related prior to marriage, though it must have been convenient not having to learn a new last name (Sam’s patriarchal name is actually SEE). Sam was born in 1901, the sixth child of John William and Francis Farr Seay. His parents married in 1889 at the Alameda Church.

One time Sam and Gladys traveled to Weinert, Texas to pick cotton for much-needed cash. Sam’s horses were always well trained and knew some amazing tricks. One time, Sam was riding his horse Babe home from calling on Gladys before they were married (he lived in Kokomo, a distance of 12 miles). When Sam was accosted by two men intent on robbing him, Babe took a bite out of one of the men, allowing Sam to escape.

Sam went to work for Humble Oil Co during the oil boom in Cisco. He also worked in the oil fields of Ranger, Eastland and Cisco. Sam and his brother Albert helped build the Cisco dam in 1920. Sam and Gladys had five children, all born at home.

Before Sam married Gladys, his family lived in the old Duffer split log cabin for a time near the Leon River. Sam’s dad went to work for A.L. (“Doc”) Duffer. His principal job was running a legal distillery that Mr. Duffer’s father John Duffer had built on the property.

The Sam Seays went to work for Dr. A. K. “Doc” Wier in June 1934 and lived for a time in a house on his ranch. Doc Wier bought the land from Doc Duffer. Gladys remembers there not being fences built along the Leon River until around 1934. The river used to flood and be a mile across in some places. Houses floating down the river are clear in Gladys’ memory. One of Gladys’ favorite sayings is “a little ole storm no bigger than your hat came up”.

Their first house on the Wier Ranch was originally a building used to store hay. When the Seays prepared to move in, the building had no windows, doors, electricity, running water, or inside toilet. The building was later clad with native stone. Oil lamps were used for light. Meals were cooked on a wood cook stove. Gladys never learned to drive a car, though she can milk a cow, pluck a chicken, raise a fine garden and of course, run a household (as a child, and as a woman).

Gladys and Sam’s kids received one new pair of shoes and one new outfit each year. Other than remembering the loss of her mom, a smile never left Gladys’ face the day we visited. I forgot to ask what her dreams were, as a girl growing up. I suspect her journey was not what she expected, though I hope she ended up with the life she hoped for. “We can not know what the Lord has in store for us,” she said.  I have to believe He is pleased in her result.