Family Values: A centenarian's perspective on 20th century life
by Kim Vanderburg with Jeff Cole

This article was originally published in the March 2008 issue of Oklahoma Edge magazine (OklahomaEdge.com), reprinted with permission.

Laura Etta Neely Horton was born on November 14, 1899 in Texas.  When she was just one or two months old, her family crossed the frozen Red River during the hard winter of 1899 and moved to Seminole County, Indian Territory.  The river was unregulated back then and was treacherous.  Only on this rare occasion when the Red River froze solid enough could they and many other white settlers cross on foot and wagons. The family made their home just north of what is now Ada, Oklahoma.

She was the sixth of ten children.  Her parents were Charles Marion “Bud” Neely, a farmer and amateur photographer, and Fannie Jones Neely.

When she reached school age, Etta would ride the train into Ada every Monday morning where she attended grade school at Friendship School.  She stayed in Ada during the week with her aunt Laurie (C.C. Brewer) who lived on Oak Street and returned home each Friday afternoon on the train back to Seminole.  She later finished eighth grade at Ada's Oak Street School, which is now used as a senior citizens center.

Her father bought a farm located east of Ada toward Allen, Oklahoma.  He began fencing and preparing a place for the family to live while Etta was still living at home.  During his construction of the fences, the Ada business from which Bud had purchased his fencing materials was holding a contest to award a piano to whomever purchased the most fencing by the end of their contest period.  Consequently, Bud won the piano and Etta learned to play well enough that her friends and family would gather around and sing while she played.  Sadly, in 1913 when the construction of the new home was almost complete, Bud was overcome with pneumonia and died.  The boys of the family had to take over and move the family in.

Etta married William Alexander “Bill” Horton in 1915 and they remained together until Bill died at the age of 93.  During the early years of their marriage they both worked at many jobs to make ends meet.  At first, Bill share-cropped with his uncle, then they formed a partnership with some friends and opened a small store in Steedman.  The partnership didn't work out and the store was soon closed.  They followed a lumber company for a while, cooking meals and living in a tent.  Etta recalled that it wasn't much fun because little creatures would often invade their tent.  She would chop cotton along Bill's side or do whatever job they could find.  One such job was at the local pickle factory.  They saved every penny they could and kept it all in a local bank.  One morning her boss, the owner of the pickle factory, Mr. Adkins, told her to get her money out of the bank immediately.  She did as he told her, and the very next day the banks failed.  The Great Depression hit!

They bought two lots and a house near the glass plant in Ada.  Bill didn't like living in town, so in 1923 they traded even for ten acres and a home at Homer, on the east side of Ada.  About this time Etta had a son, Lindell Odell Horton, who only lived a few days.  It was a very difficult birth.

By 1930, Etta's mother, Fannie, whose health was failing, was staying with her at Homer.  Etta's youngest sister, Irie, married John Leader and became pregnant with their first child, Billy John.  Hours after his birth, Irie became ill and died.  Fannie and Etta drove to the hospital to claim the newborn.  The nurse, handing the baby to Etta, said, “Feed him when he is hungry and change him when he needs it!”  Etta's daily routine centered itself around Billy John and became a regimen of milking the cow to feed him and washing his diapers in the creek.

Fannie died a year later and didn't live to see what a fine young man Billy John grew up to be.  After he was older, he stayed with his uncle Elmer, but was always part of Etta's family.  Etta had her second child, Wilma, in 1934.  Etta and Bill always treated Billy John as part of their family.  If Wilma got a new bike, Billy John got a new bike.  Etta helped her bachelor brother, Elmer, financially.  When she moved to Antlers, Elmer and Billy John moved too.  When Elmer and Billy John moved back to Ada before Etta, she gave them cattle to sell for subsistence money.  Elmer was the only child who stayed on the old homestead near Allen.  Etta would “pay” him money to watch a few head of cattle for her.  She loved her brother and Billy John.  She never failed to make sure they had the basic necessities.  In those days, that was all people could afford.

Etta laughingly recalled a time when Billy John and Wilma got into some poison oak together.  She feels blessed that over the years she was close to Billy John and Dena, his wife, and their children.  Billy, who could do just about anything, would help her whenever she needed something fixed, whether it was convenient or not.

Etta recalled loading up the wagon whenever they could spare the time and spending a week at Sulphur, Oklahoma in the mud baths and sulfur springs.  For a while Bill worked at the cement plant.  On one occasion as he was walking away from a truck load of cement culverts when they broke loose and rolled off the truck, knocking him down and rolling over one side, breaking his shoulder and causing other injuries.  When he recovered, they moved to Antlers and bought a 160 acre farm between Antlers and Rattan, where they remained for two years farming and improving the property.  They later sold this farm and relocated to a farm near the old family homestead between Ada and Allen.  They lived there for a few years improving the house, then bought the 160 acre “Toby place” after a work trip to California, Bill as a welder and Etta as a managing waitress at a restaurant owned by a naval officer during the early 1940's war years.  They worked in other parts of the country at different times when things were rough financially, but always returned to the Ada area.  Etta, chuckling, said she would have stayed in California if Bill would have agreed.

Etta remembered her first driving experience.  The first car they bought was a model “A” Ford.  When asked how she learned to drive, she said, “There was no driver's training in those days.  They just showed me where the accelerator and brakes were, then told me to steer where I wanted to go!”

When her sister Sarah's husband, Charlie Cook, was managing a cotton farm in Arizona, Etta and Bill worked there from time to time.  Many times Etta and her brother Elmer would deliver fresh vegetables by truck up and down the streets in Ada.  People seemed very happy to see her coming with fresh vegetables and melons from the farm.  Once, when her daughter Wilma was visiting from Reno, Nevada, where she taught school, Etta insisted she visit a fortune teller, one of Etta's customers.  The lady told Wilma that she would marry a tall man and have two sons.  A few years later, that is exactly what happened.

Throughout their 74 years of marriage, Etta and Bill owned many small country stores.  The first store was at Steedman, near Allen, then at the turn-off to Lovelady (about 3 miles east of Ada), then at Happyland, and then just past Happyland on the northeast corner of the “Toby place”.  Many people, over the years, have stopped at Horton's General Store for gas, goodies and conversation around the pot-bellied stove.  In 1982, she built a new store and ran it for 6 years.  At about that time, the highway department decided to enlarge the two-lane highway and bought the store.  She moved the store building to another location she owned on Kirby Street.

Over the years, Etta invested in rental properties.  She owned several houses near Oak and 12th streets.  She had bought a new home and five acres in the 1970's next to the ten acres she and Bill had purchased back in 1923.  In 1988 Etta bought a house on 12th street in Ada and moved the family into town.  Bill died about a year later.

In 1999, about the time she stopped driving due to a fender bender, she and her daughter decided to move to Talihina and buy the old bank building on Main Street.  It supplied them with extra income and is in the hub of things.  She remains there at this time and is very happy and healthy at the age of 108.  She rides the free bus supplied by the Choctaw Nation to lunch every day.  Etta has never had any surgery, nor has she ever had any serious illness.  She has to keep a close watch on her blood pressure, perhaps because she eats anything she pleases, but is otherwise very healthy.  She is involved in a study being conducted by Boston University that is closely investigating the life styles, health, etc. of people who live over 100 years.  The study has collected blood and saliva (for DNA) of dozens of centenarians.  They have come up with some interesting facts about this group of people:  Centenarians are not big worriers; They are not afraid of work; and the majority have a common, larger cholesterol gene, which appears to slow the aging process.

Etta loves good home cooking and has cooked many a meal for her family.  She especially likes lemon meringue and mince pies.  Some of her javorite foods are sweet potatoes, cornbread, home-cured hams, fried potatoes and onions, tomatoes and fresh vegetables from the garden.  Whenever she and Bill would move to a new home, Bill would plant an orchard or add to the one already there.  They always had a milk cow and pigs to butcher.  Canning meat was one of her ways of preserving food before the freezer became a common appliance in the home.  Etta used to have a special gas refrigerator to keep chickens she would raise and kill for meat.  She could dress dozens at a time!  There was always a smoke house to cure hams and bacon.  Bill would scout around and find bee hives for honey, or wild grapes for home made jelly.  Etta would cook a squirrel or opossum and sweet potatoes from the cellar, or whatever he could find.

Etta was using gas for lights and refrigerators, etc. until the 1950's.  Prior to then, there was to TV, so people made their own entertainment.  Bill used to sing many old songs that told stories as they sat around on the porch, visiting with relatives and friends, watching the kids play in the evenings – if they weren't too tired from working hard all day.  The first half of Etta's life was getting up before daylight and going to bed long after dark in order to have enough food and other necessities.

Etta has no remaining siblings, but she has some very special nieces, nephews and cousins.  Billy John has passed away and his wife, Dena, remains in Ada on Kirby Street.  Their four children: Dennis, Sherrie, Brenda and Linda are doing well.  Sherrie and her family live in the Ada area.  The four children of her brother, Buster:  Luke, Jeanie, Shirley and Doris keep in touch.  In fact, it was not unusual to see Luke coming up the walk with polk salad he had found out in the wild, or watermelons and cantaloupes from his patch.  Shirley and her Husband, James, live in Ada.  Jeanie lives in Merced, California, but never forgets to write.  Her brother Jess's daughter, Mildred, who still lives in Ada keeps in touch, as does Violet, her sister, Murtie Ann's daughter, who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Etta's brother, Will, has six living children:  Caroma, Maxine, Charles, Wilma Jean, Ida and Margaret.  Maxine and Margaret keep her informed about the family.

Etta wants everyone to know how grateful she feels to have had so many wonderful relatives and friends over the years.  She has been blessed indeed.