FAMILIES, THOUGHTS AND RECOLLECTION

As Christmas Eve approaches thoughts turn to memories of Christmases past. Some memories are fond recollections of Christmas at Grandmother’s house where the smell of fresh baked bread, coupled with the aroma of hum frying, could get one out of bed even on the coldest morning.

Other memories remind us how fortunate we are to be together at this time of year. “I remember one Christmas in Alaska when I was barely 20,” recalls Barbara Selfridge. “I was young and had followed my true love to the ends of the Earth. I wanted everything to be just perfect. My tree was decorated with red balls and red bows. It was beautiful.

“It was also the loneliest Christmas I have ever lived through. I learned that it was not how much money you spent or that you had all of the ‘right’ things, it was to be able to be with the ones you hold dear,” Barb concluded.

“When I was in Foster Care in South Dakota they would give me Christmas presents and then they would take them away the next day because I was just a 'foster kid’ and did not count,” recalls Susie Selfridge. “They told me that they were going to give the presents to someone who really mattered.”

“I was so happy when I was finally adopted because I knew that no one would ever take me away again or would give my things away,” Susie said. “I used to hate Christmas,” Christopher Selfridge said. “My Mommy and her boyfriend would always get into a big fight and I would have to hide in the closet because I was afraid I would get hurt.

“One time my Mommy threw a glass coffee table and there was glass everywhere. I would have to sneak out after they went to bed and steal food from the refrigerator.”

“I remember my first Christmas here,” said Candice Selfridge. “I wanted a new bike so bad because I had never had a new one. I always had bikes someone else discarded. When I came downstairs there was a shiny new pink bike and it was just for me.”

I remember a young girl in Oklahoma City who used to make paper flowers and sell them on the street because she had no one to care for her. One day they found her frozen to death in the tenement room she lived in down near Reno.

I am sure there were other young children who suffered the same fate as she did but every time I hear that song I think it was written just for her.

When I think of things like that I realize just how fortunate I am to have the family I do and to be able to enjoy them. I remember the Christmas of '82. We were living in Denver and there was a terrible snow storm which started just after noon on December 24. Barb and I were not married and lived four blocks apart.

Late on Christmas Eve I decided to try to get to Barb’s place. The drifts were 10 to 14 feet deep and nothing was moving anywhere. I harnessed up my guide dog, Happy, a very large Labrador who weighed 140 pounds and we headed out.

I soon discovered I could not make any headway so I let Happy break a trail for me. He thought it was great and, after about an hour, we managed to reach Barb’s apartment. I was covered with snow from the top of my head to the bottom of my boots but it was worth it to see the look on Barb’s face when I knocked on her door. It is amazing what one can accomplish when love is the motivator.

We are so fortunate to be able to have the children we do. The tree looks very much like a truck passed by and just dumped the decorations on it but the children think it is the greatest thing they have ever had and, after all, Christmas is for children.

Sitting atop out Christmas tree is the Angel with the broken wing which Barb found in a second hand store many years ago. When I asked her what ever possessed her to buy it she said “it looked so lonely just sitting there, wanted by no one and I knew I could fix the wing so she could be pretty again.”

“A lot of people have asked how we managed to get so many children,” Barb said. “I just tell them that these children who, like the Angel, unwanted and imperfect, just needed some love and needed to be wanted for who and what they were so they could be pretty again.”

From our house to your house, have a wonderful Christmas and May God bless each of you.

50 YEARS AGO – 1972

‘LOW-DOWN’ VANDALS HIT

GRAVES

There’s nobody more lowdown than someone who would vandalize the grave of a child. That’s the opinion of Mrs. Orville Cline, a rural Okmulgee County resident, and the grandmother of Ricky Miller, whose body was lain peacefully in Westlawn Cemetery since 1949 just north of the soldier’s graves.

Until someone removed the small marble angel that had been bolted to the simple grave marker. Ricky was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Doyle Miller, of Okmulgee.

An Identical angel was also taken from another child’s grave nearby. “To me this is the most lowdown sinful thing there could be,” Mrs. Cline said. “I guess somebody thought those two little angels would make a nice Christmas decoration in front of their house,” she said.

“We go by the cemetery every so often just to visit Ricky’s grave and make sure everything’s all right. But this time the little angel was gone.

“It must have been just recently taken since the metal bolts that held it down were still shiny and hadn’t rusted yet,” she said.

A check with the cemetery caretaker revealed that several graves had been vandalized lately. And a number of monuments were discovered near the edge of the cemetery. Whoever took the trouble to remove the markers apparently didn’t want them that bad after all.

Ricky’s angel was one of the markers left strewn by vandals. “It’s still just as bad,” Mrs. Cline said.

IT’S EASY TO COMMIT

SOMEONE

Kenneth Butler, Okmulgee attorney, urged reform in Oklahoma’s Mental Health Code Tuesday when he spoke before a group of Henryetta businessmen at the Lions Club luncheon Tuesday. Butler is a native of Okmulgee County, a graduate of Okmulgee High School, and a 1967 graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He served for two years in the District Attorney’s office and is now in private practice in Okmulgee.

“I’m not here to criticize the people involved; the law needs to be changed,” Butler said. According to the attorney, a relative or peace officer can go to the associate district judge and sign a petition that a person is dangerous, either to himself or to others, and the person will be taken into custody immediately.

A sanity commission, composed of two doctors and a lawyer, is then called, and the person involved is “on his way to Vinita.” The commission will interview the patient and his relatives, although the examination is not a thorough one, Butler said.

During 1972, 73 people from Okmulgee County have been sent to Eastern State Hospital in Vinita.

Butler pointed out that while the rights of people with criminal charges against them are carefully protected, there is no protection for the mentally ill. He suggested that the mentally ill are entitled to a hearing before a jury before being committed.

Once a person has been legally committed to one of the state mental hospitals, he is legally incompetent. He retains that legal status, even upon his release, until he takes legal steps to have his competency restored.

The purpose of the state Mental Health Code is to provide “humane treatment and care of mentally ill persons.” According to Butler, changes are definitely needed in the care of the mentally ill, if this purpose is to be fulfilled.

BERNO TAKES LIGHTS

PRIZE

The Don Berno home in Dewar was named first place winner in the annual Lions Club lighting contest, Jim Lee said Friday. The Berno residence finished third last year.

A $25 prize will be awarded to the Bernos. Second place and $15 in prize money goes to Mike Gavras, of 1000 Lake Road, in Henryetta, Gavras won first place last year.

The W. H. Jones residence in Crabtree Addition was named third place winner. $10 is awarded for third place. Honorable mention went to A. O. Bobat, J. H. Hudson, Mrs. Bobby Trammell and Tommy Woodall.

Prize money was donated by the American Exchange Bank and the Public Service Company.

75 YEARS AGO – 1947

SHERIFF HOPES FOR LATE

GIFT TO END TROUBLES

Sheriff Jim Kirby today was hoping a late Christmas gift would hurry and arrive after a Christmas day jailbreak attempt by Henry Wittman, of Nuyaka and California, was foiled at the county jail.

The gift Kirby was hoping for was a sheriff, due any minute from Arizona to claim Wittman and two companions being held in the jail for California and Arizona authorities.

A lone jailor Dan Painter, was left at the jail while other officers were home for Christmas yesterday. When he arrived at Wittman’s cell with a special Christmas dinner, Painter was jumped by the prisoner.

The jailer quickly tossed the jail keys out the window, and then was pounded on the floor by the 19 year old Wittman. The screams of a woman prisoner arrived at the jail.

The woman, Elizabeth Dunsan, 28, Okmulgee, in jail on a vagrancy charge received a Christmas present in the form of an early release from jail as a reward of her actions.

Wittman, with two companions, was rounded up in a posse raid Wednesday at Nuyaka and two other youths also wanted by out of state authorities were seized Thursday at Tishomingo and Claremore.

100 YEARS AGO – 1922

Information charging Mattie Nail and Ed Long with the murder in connection with the killing of John Falcone yesterday when struck by an automobile alleged to have been driven by the woman, were filed here today.

Mattie Nail, a well-known character of this city, is in jail at Okmulgee and a charge of murder will, it is said, be lodged against her today.

Yesterday, it is alleged, while driving an automobile on the Morris road out of Okmulgee, she ran down and killed John Falcone, a shoemaker of Okmulgee, while he was working on his car.

Falcone and another man had started to Muskogee in a car, while his brother and the wife of the dead man and his brother and some children, started in another car.

Falcone’s car not working well, he drove to the extreme right side of the road and was out repairing it when the Nail woman came along at a terrific speed and her car, a Buick, struck Falcone, killing him almost instantly.

It developed that the Nail woman had a man in the front seat with her known as “Eddie” and three youths in her rear seat. These latter managed to get away and their identity has not yet been ascertained.

The impact threw the woman’s car into the ditch and abandoning it she secured a taxi and went to Sapulpa where she was induced to return to Okmulgee and surrender to the police which she did about 10:00 o’clock last night. She was locked up, as was “Eddie” and it was stated that a charge of murder would be filed against her today.

A woman residing near the scene of the accident said she noticed the car driven by the Nail woman, by reason of the terrific pace at which it was traveling. A man from Hutchinson, Kansas, said the woman’s car passed him on the road a short time before and that it was “splitting the wind.”

At the police station in Okmulgee last night the woman said she had not been drinking but the police found evidence to lead them to the belief that she had and “Eddie” who said he was riding in the front seat with her, said she had been drinking.

The Morris road is one of the new highways recently completed in the county, such as that leading out of Henryetta, and speeding has already become a menace thereon, but this is the first death to be noted since the completion of the road.

Mattie Nail has long resided at what is known as the O. K. rooms in this city and on December 17, the present month, she was arrested with “Billy” Fitch on charges of being drunk and disorderly. Other charges were mentioned in the complaint but were not pressed. Each of them deposited a cash bond of $12.50 for their appearance in police court. It was during the absence of Mayor Hawes and Acting Mayor Roy Corbit was presiding in the police court. When the cases against the women were called, the defendants did not appear and the acting mayor did not see fit to just forfeit the bonds and let them go, but instructed the police to bring them into court at 4:00 o’clock that afternoon. Mattie Nail was brought in but “Billy” Fitch had flown the city. The Nail woman was found guilty and fined $25. The chief of police said she had been notified to leave the city. Nothing had been heard of her until the escapade of yesterday.

On September 2, 1922, an information was filed in the superior court charging Mattie Nail with keeping a bawdy house located on lots 10 and 11 in block 45 of Henryetta. The case is on the docket for trial at the present term of superior court.